1This doctoral research examines women’s lived migration experiences under mobile patriarchy. Mobile patriarchy underscores the transnational mobility of patriarchy between the origin societies and the destinations mediating and governing women’s experiences and agency. More specifically, the dissertation offers a gender analysis of the transnational mobilities of Gurkha women – women of Nepali origin with historic and contemporary links to the exclusively male Gurkha soldiers who have been serving in the British Army for more than 200 years – both with and without their dependents. In addition to wives and family members, the definition of Gurkha women applies to the mobilities of nurses, midwives, teachers, radio presenters, clerical staff, soldiers and other professionals who have worked with British Gurkhas, either with or without their dependents.

2The inquiries made during this research are guided by two primary questions. How does patriarchy shape the transnational migration experiences of women? And how are women represented in social memory in patriarchal and military settings? In adopting approaches of postcolonial feminist historiography and elucidating histories of women’s mobilities, the dissertation links social memory studies to the literature on gender and migration, and questions the concept of the feminisation of migration. Furthermore, by bringing forth women’s subjective accounts, the dissertation examines forms of patriarchal bargains that women from militarised cultures have been employing. Like a microcosm of patriarchal Nepali society, the transnational British military adopted and reinforced patriarchal values, exerted control, shaped women’s experiences and aspirations, and governed their bodies. The transnational experiences of women reflect their collective history of performativity under military governance.

3Gurkha women, both wives and working individuals, were expected to maintain domesticity and femininity within and outside the household. They performed their socially and militarily prescribed gender roles within the boundaries carved out by mobile patriarchy, not as docile subjects but as actors with an understanding of their social worlds guided by their habitus. Many women challenged patriarchal diktats by ignoring military and social attitudes towards their attire, actively refusing the surveillance of their homes and avoiding marital domesticity. Given these women’s special interactions with colonial military migration, the dissertation argues that Gurkha women can serve as an analytical category for understanding and expanding gender subjectivities and colonial historiography in South Asia. The dissertation concludes that mobile patriarchy permeates three institutions in the private/public lives of Gurkha women – family life, military and social memory. The research project is partly available on Instagram and Facebook.