Migration, Food Security and Development: Insights from Rural India

Description

This book examines the role of migration as a livelihood strategy in influencing food access among rural households. Migration forms a key component of livelihoods for an increasing number of rural households in many developing countries. Importantly, there is now a growing consensus among academics and policymakers on the potential positive effects of migration in promoting human development. Concurrently, the significance of food security as an important development objective has grown tremendously, and the Sustainable Development Goals agenda envisages eliminating all forms of malnutrition. However, the academic and policy discussions on these two issues have largely proceeded in silos, with little attention devoted to the relationship they bear with each other. Using the conceptual frameworks of 'entitlements' and 'sustainable livelihoods', this book seeks to fill this gap in the context of India - a country with the most food-insecure people in the world and where migration is integral to rural livelihoods.

Chetan Choithani is Assistant Professor in Inequality and Human Development Programme of School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies, India. The broad disciplinary domain of Chetan's work is development studies. Within this area, his research and teaching interests include migration and urbanization, food and nutrition, livelihoods, gender, and social policy and how they relate to development, particularly in the Indian context. He has published on these issues in peer-reviewed journals including World Development, Gender, Place and Culture, Geographical Research, Journal of Peasant Studies, and Economic and Political Weekly. Chetan has done extensive fieldwork in remote parts of India, and his research uses primary, field-based insights to engage with and inform larger issues of development.