ABSTRACT
The increasing feminisation of migration from Kerala, as skilled nurses, into Western care and health sectors is an outcome of the Kerala model of development. However, gender capital operates within limits due not only to the intersections of different forms of gendered capital (i.e. female, feminine and masculine) but also the classed and the religious, post-colonial and racial forces that influence the formation and transformation of gendered habitus. Global gendered migration intersects with historical trajectories of migrations and with social constructions of care and body work, where the habitus is tested whilst striving to “fit in” the field, thus transforming migrant habitus and gendered capital.
