Seasonal migration and everyday lives of children of salt workers from little rann of Kutch, Gujarat

Moving, travelling and migrating to unknown terrains, i.e., terra incognita, is as old as human existence. Absence of livelihood opportunities often results in families migrating to terrains which are collectively viewed as adverse. Salt workers in Gujarat, also known as the Agariyas in the local language, migrate to Little Rann of Kutch for a period of eight to nine months. Generations of Agariyas have followed the same pattern of living. Families live in make shift houses in the harsh desert condition at great distances from each other. In a diverse country with multitudes of childhoods, there are lives of children who are still unheard and unreached. The present paper enters the lives of children of the Agariya community to understand the way seasonal migration shapes their everyday lives. An ethnographic approach was used to study the lives in two different settings; the village and the desert. The ecology is dynamic and so are the lives embedded in it. Through a systems approach, the paper discusses the ecology, the process of salt farming and the role of government and stakeholders. Contextualising the lives, the ways in which children negotiate and integrate this continuous movement is discussed.