Social Networks in Migration

The Valley of Kashmir is a key geographic and administrative region within the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, located in the northernmost part of India. Nearly every resident, especially in the Valley of Kashmir, continues to face a number of security concerns and issues throughout the year. This also applies to in-migrants. When it comes to commercial and industrial facilities, the Valley is essentially a blank canvas with a nearly pastoral feel. In terms of industrialisation, it is at the bottom. Even so, the Valley of Kashmir is home to countless numbers of in-migrants from nearly every Indian state and union territory. There has also been an increase in the number of in-migrants from 709,004 in 2001 to 1,146,368 in 2011, as reported by the Census of India. How the migrants reach and work in a conflicted zone is an important question and is widely missed by the available literature? The network linkages have played an important role in this migration process. Due to the conflict situation in Kashmir, all the in-migrants use information through different types of information sources available at both the origin and destination. Approximately 93% of in-migrants to Kashmir reported repeated migration, with a significant share in the 30–49 age group. Migration was largely facilitated through informal social networks—friends, relatives, agents, and even strangers—highlighting the central role of network-based information and support in shaping migration patterns. The article is an attempt to find these network information sources and their importance in migrant’s livelihood strategies in Kashmir Valley and will be the first of its kind. There is very little information on migration and its trends in the Valley. The study has been carried out using well-structured, scheduled questionnaires in all ten districts of the Valley among in-migrants and local labourers. A total of 300 samples of in-migrants and 50 samples of local labourers, based on stratified random sampling, have been selected for the purpose of data collection through interviews.