Nepali female migrants in Portugal: citizenship and political participation in two generations

In this study, I will depart from theoretical considerations about migration, modernity, gender discrimination (Timmerman, Fonseca, Van Praag and Pereira, 2018; Ruyssen and Salomone, 2018) and Nepali international female migration (Chaudary, 2020; World Bank, 2022; Borelli, 2022; Shrestha, 2022), including their political and activist participation and solidarity networks in destination countries. My main goal is to answer the following research question: how can we define successful migratory outcomes by Nepali female migrants from two generations and evaluate them, while pondering both experiences of discrimination or unequalities, and the citizenship and political participation of those females? I operationalize the most relevant key concepts involved – such as the main forms of female migrant discrimination, the skills and capabilities of Nepali female migrants. This is a qualitative investigation, combining participant observation, the field diary and the ethnographic method with semi-structured interviews (1h30m) to 20 1st generation Nepali female migrants and 10 2nd generation Nepali female migrants living in Portugal, all above 18 years of age. Results were thematically analyzed using NVIVO 12. I describe, in detail, the novelty of the results obtained concerning citizenship and political participation, solidarity networks, discrimination experiences and capabilities of the women – comparing results for both generations. I conclude by discussing the future implications of my contributions.