Lines of Labor and Desire: “Korean Quality” in Contemporary Kathmandu

Using the theoretically and empirically multivalent concept of “Korean quality,” this article examines articulations of consumption, popular culture, and labor migration in contemporary Nepal. Drawing on the anticipation surrounding the 2010 administration of the Employment Permit System-Korean Language Test, for which over 40,000 Nepalis were candidates, we embed this moment in longer histories of desire and discipline. The qualification mechanism deployed in this system both shifts and is crosscut by Nepali landscapes of risk, class habitus, and expectation. Going beyond the frames in which such phenomena are usually considered, we suggest, is necessary for mapping oft-hidden entanglements of transnational processes.