Identity Formation and the Politics of Belonging: The Case Of Bengali Migrant Workers In Kerala

This article examines the identity formation and everyday negotiations of Bengali interstate migrants in Kerala through the lens of Social Identity Theory (SIT) and Self-Categorization Theory (SCT). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with migrant families, children, and teachers, it explores how language, work hierarchies, and cultural practices shape processes of belonging and exclusion. A key contribution lies in connecting Kerala’s usage of the term “guest worker”—borrowed from Germany’s Gastarbeiter experience—to the everyday realities of Bengali migrants, showing how the term embodies both economic indispensability and permanent outsiderhood. Findings reveal that while children’s schooling and linguistic adaptation open partial pathways to integration, adult migrants articulate ambivalent forms of identity shaped by sacrifice, nostalgia, and cultural reproduction. Migrants perceive their presence in Kerala as necessary but temporary, producing what may be called “bounded inclusion”: visible in the labour market yet excluded from civic and symbolic membership. The study highlights a gap in Indian scholarship on migrant identity formation, arguing for frameworks that move beyond assimilationist logics to recognize hybridity, resilience, and agency as constitutive of Global South childhoods.