Transmitting In/equality Across Borders: Shifting Inheritance Practices and Outcomes among Indian Migrants in London

Investigations of migrants' inheritance practices and outcomes are limited in multi-disciplinary migration and inheritance studies. This omission is surprising given that more than a billion people are migrants, 244 million of whom are international migrants. Situated within conceptual and empirical lacunae, this project aims to interrogate the migration-inheritance nexus. At its core is a concern to make visible the extent and patterns of transnational inheritance among migrant men and women, and examine how these are mediated by gender and class; interrogate the formal and informal mechanisms through which migrants' inheritance rights and entitlements are negotiated, maintained and translated, and assess the extent to which inherited assets shape economic security and productivity. Focusing on skilled and semi-skilled Indian migrants living in London, a mixed method research strategy will be deployed, entailing a questionnaire survey with migrants; qualitative interviews with migrant men and women as well as wealth and asset managers, solicitors and other financial advisors who mediate migrant inheritance, and an analysis of migrants' wills.