Gendered Labor and Im/Mobility: Understanding Rural Futures in Nepal's Migration-Impacted Community Forest Landscape

Amidst the significant culture of rural out-migration, dominant narratives often characterize rural youth as eager to escape agrarian life and women as passively ‘left behind.’ This perspective perpetuates a mobility bias that obscures the active ways rural populations respond to migration-induced socio-economic shifts and systemic state neglect in their communities. This dissertation, therefore, examines how rural youth perceive the prospect of migration and how women navigate the impacts of transnational labor migration in their homes and communities, ultimately arguing that migration and viable rural futures are not mutually exclusive. Utilizing mixed-methodologies including stakeholder and multi-generational interviews, photovoice, focus groups discussions, and a household survey, this research investigates shifting youth spatial aspirations, household labor dynamics, and environmental collective action in the western middle-hills of Nepal. The findings reveal a profound intergenerational shift in spatial desires, as rural youth recognize the precarity in their parents’ migration histories and subsequently do not inherently aspire to enter labor migration pathways. Instead, they plan to pursue temporary educational migration as a strategic tool to be more competitive in the local off-farm job market, fundamentally aspiring to remain rooted in their communities. Concurrently, women reframe the migration-induced feminization of responsibilities into relational and collective empowerment. Rather than seeing themselves as victims to time poverty, women leverage their increased domestic authority to enter leadership roles within Nepal’s Community Forestry (CF) program. Through CF, women engage in transformative social reproduction, aspiring to cultivate viable local forest-based livelihood options that enable future generations to stay rooted. Ultimately, this dissertation challenges assumptions about inevitable agrarian decline in the contemporary age of rural out-migration. By advancing the Aspirations and (Cap)Abilities framework, a culture-centered definition of agency, and Feminist Political Ecology, this research demonstrates that rural out-migration paradoxically catalyzes communities to collectively reimagine and invest in local futures. It highlights rootedness as an active, aspirational project and advocates for development policies that prioritize rural infrastructure alongside safe migration pathways.