Paper short abstract:

Kinship and friendship endow persons with crucial material and immaterial resources such as solidarity and support. At the same time, the social proximity inherent in these constellations can be dangerous when intimate knowledge about kin and friends can be used against them - to one’s own advantage.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation provides an inquiry into family and 'community' relations among Nepalese night watchmen in Bangalore, Southern India. Numerous constellations of belonging are at play in these transnational social spaces. Migration puts substantial stress upon peers at the places of 'origin' while investing in their kith and kin going to work in distant places. Long-distance belonging is full of tensions, longing and predicaments that are fuelled at places of 'arrival'. Relations between migrants in Bangalore are largely structured by 'regimes of belonging' consisting of norms, intimate knowledge, and dense interactions. This contribution describes the scope of mutual support, but also the power of mistrust reigning in relations between friends and peers. It addresses instances of taking advantage from one another in the closely knitted 'local community'. The tensions between 'eternal' communal values on one hand and the possibilities of resistance on the other are of key-importance, here. The empirical insights of this case are a perfect illustration to Marc Granovetter's credo: "You always hurt the one you love".