ABSTRACT
Capital accumulation in migrant rationales and challenges that young migrants face when entering a new location such as deskilling that results in downward capital experiences have been well established in South Asian Migration scholarship. Yet the articulations of young people themselves are often missing on how they deal with their expectations versus realities of capital accumulation. This chapter draws on semi-structured interviews and focus group sessions with 38 young people from Nepal and India, who had experienced migrating to another location in their country of birth or internationally for higher education and/or work opportunities. More specifically, this chapter focuses on experiences of downward capital from what participants referred to as reverse capital. Reverse capital presents the phenomenon of youth thinking they would gain immediate upward capital (in all its forms) upon migrating but instead experiencing the opposite from having to use their previously earned capital on their livelihoods and reskilling processes. The diminishing of young people’s capital also led to irregular migration with return visits home from a lack of affordability to do so. Overall, this chapter presents the time, energy, and financial resources young people in this study put towards their capital accumulation strategies while showing how they deal with moments of uncertainty and moments of reverse outcomes compared to expected realities of their migration, education, and work experience when trying to gain upwards capital.
