Tagged / india

Nepal migrant workers returning from India

Nepal has been in the world news this week for the wrong reasons, with young protesters burning down the parliament, and damaging many government building in all seven provinces.  Some 30 young people died in the process and and thousands of sometimes dangerous prisoners were freed.   After the political and social upheaval in the country this past week, Nepalese migrant workers are beginning to return home from India to be with their families. Today (Friday 12th September) the BBC online reported under the heading ‘Worried migrants head home from India after Nepal turmoil‘.

The journalist interviewed both migrant workers and students from Nepal living in India.  The piece also cited several studies on Nepalese migrant workers in India, including a Bournemouth University (BU) study with the title ‘The Health of Nepali Migrants in India: A Qualitative Study of Lifestyles and Risks[1].  This publication is one of the many published papers on the health and well-being of Nepalese migrant workers conducted in BU’s Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences.  The lead author of this paper in theInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is Dr. Pramod Regmi, Principal Academic in International Health. 

 

References:

  1. Regmi PR, van Teijlingen E, Mahato P, Aryal N, Jadhav N, Simkhada P, Zahiruddin QS, Gaidhane A. (2019) The Health of Nepali Migrants in India: A Qualitative Study of Lifestyles and Risks. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 16(19):3655. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16193655.

 

Congratulations to Prof. Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Congratulations to Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Professor of Social and Cultural Diversity, on the publication of her latest book An Historiography of Women’s Missionary Nursing Through the Lives of Two Sisters: Doing the Lord’s work in Kenya and South India (published by Routledge).

This book employs both ethnographic and secondary, archival data, drawing on a rich, fascinating trove of original material from the pre-1940s to the present day.  It offers a unique historiographic study of twentieth century Methodist missionary work and women’s active expression of faith, practised at the critical confluence of historical and global changes. The study focuses on two English Methodist missionary nursing Sisters and siblings, Audrey and Muriel Chalkely, whose words and experiences are captured in detail, foregrounding tumultuous socio-political changes of the end of Empire and post-Independence in twentieth century Kenya and South India.

This work presents a timely revision to prevailing postcolonial critiques in placing the fundamental importance of human relationships centre stage. Offering a detailed (auto)biographical and reflective narrative, this ‘herstory’ pivots on three main thematic strands relating to peopleplace and passion, where socio-cultural details are vividly explored. 

This book pays tribute to our former colleague, Professor Fran Biley.  As part of a wider oral history project entitled “Memories of Nursing” Fran Biley interviewed two British sisters who had retired to the South of England.  The two sisters, Muriel and Audrey, followed very similar missionary career paths in two different former British colonies.  Two sisters spent a total of 54 years working as Methodist missionaries in India and Kenya, one as a nurse, the other as a midwife.  Fran collected over 10 hours of interview data, as well as old videos, a suitcase of 35mm slides, albums full of old photographs, letters and personal papers from the two sisters.   Unfortunately, Fran died far too young in November 2012, before the rich data could be analysed.  Sara conducted further extensive interviews with Muriel and others who knew them, as well as undertaking a huge detective hunt to find a considerable amount of secondary data pertaining to the sisters and other Methodist missionaries across UK archives.  I am glad to be able to report that  Dr Muriel Chalkley, whose life is portrayed in the book, received an Honorary Doctorate from Bournemouth University in recognition of her services to nursing.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’ Health (CMWH)