From the Karakoram Mountains to the Gulf: migration, development and religion in the making of transnational spaces

Abstract

This working paper examines migration as part of a large network of relations between Kuwait and the region of Baltistan in northeastern Pakistan. Apart from migrants, this network involves the participation of philanthropists from the Kuwaiti merchant class who finance development projects in Baltistan and religious clerics from Baltistan who have been educated in the Gulf and who engage in fundraising activities there to contribute to the development of their home areas. Hence, the paper discusses the relationship between migration, development and religion by referring to three accounts circulating in Baltistan of how migration to the Gulf began, the relationship of migration and development, and the role of local religious leaders in it. Migration is central in shaping and reinforcing ties over the course of time between these two regions, but it is rendered invisible in the narratives of charity and development. This transnational activity is characterised as much as by the crossing of state borders, and thus the actors' engagement in two or more societies, as by the actors being in an ambivalent position in terms of belonging to their own state. The study of this transnational space helps us to understand relations between these two territories in terms of how the participants in the network position themselves vis-à-vis their own state, on the grounds of need and solidarity but also in terms of other interests that are connected to the realities of their respective homelands.