Utility workers: religion and the migratory stratification of foreign nurses across generations

The article analyses the role of religion in the migratory stratification of Indian nurses’ mobility and adopts a temporal perspective at three interrelated levels: a diachronic lens on the colonial legacy in the present, a comparison between three cohorts of female nurses and an attention to memories of mobility. This intersection between historical, generational and personal time allows insights into the temporal complexity of migration journeys: it casts light on how contemporary healthcare migration cumulatively builds on the longer-term relevance of religious networks. The analysis suggests how religion contributes to the layering of healthcare migration through professionalization, precarization and subordinate valorization.