What happens to a community when the majority of young people leave their homes to pursue an education?  From a Trickle to a Torrent  documents the demographic and social consequences of educational migration from Nubri, a Tibetan enclave in the highlands of Nepal. The authors explore parents’ motivations for sending their children to distant schools and monasteries, social connections that shape migration pathways, young people’s estrangement from village life, and dilemmas that arise when educated individuals are unable or unwilling to return and reside in their native villages. Drawing on numerous decades of research, this study documents a transitional period when the future of a Himalayan society teeters on the brink of irreversible change. "[A]n indispensable resource for scholars working in migration studies and educational research in rural areas." ― Mountain Research and Development "[The authors] provide a rigorous set of frameworks that would be salutary to adopt in classes on migration studies and state-society relations." ― Journal of Asian Studies "A must-read for anyone interested in the migration pattern that is transforming Himalayan societies today." ― Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology "This is an excellent book that provides an insight into the interconnected issues of education, migration, and social change in Nepal. . . . From a Trickle to a Torrent is an important contribution to the disciplines of anthropology, area studies, education, and migration." ― Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "Structured around 10 beautifully written chapters, each of which builds the argument recursively without falling prey to repetition or jargon, From a Trickle to a Torrent tells a complex story of movement, migration, and social transformation with a narrative directness and commitment to empirical data that is refreshingly engaging." ― American Ethnologist "Unlike much of the literature on migration and social change, this work pays careful, nuanced attention to how such education-driven outmigration transforms the experiences of those who stay home as well as those who leave, those who return, and those who strive to imagine futures that posit so-called marginal homelands and well-known cosmopolitan places as fundamentally interconnected.&;&;Sienna Craig, author of Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine "In lucid and vivid prose, Geoff Childs and Namgyal Choedup tell a poignant story of educational outmigration from rural Himalayan Nepal. Deftly mixing methods and levels of analysis, and drawing on over two decades of longitudinal research, From a Trickle to a Torrent demonstrates the power of a truly anthropological demography to explain the hidden causes and costs of human movement."&;Michael Lempert, author of Discipline and Debate: The Language of Violence in a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery "Unlike much of the literature on migration and social change, this work pays careful, nuanced attention to how such education-driven outmigration transforms the experiences of those who stay home as well as those who leave, those who return, and those who strive to imagine futures that posit so-called marginal homelands and well-known cosmopolitan places as fundamentally interconnected.”—Sienna Craig, author of Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine "In lucid and vivid prose, Geoff Childs and Namgyal Choedup tell a poignant story of educational outmigration from rural Himalayan Nepal. Deftly mixing methods and levels of analysis, and drawing on over two decades of longitudinal research, From a Trickle to a Torrent demonstrates the power of a truly anthropological demography to explain the hidden causes and costs of human movement."—Michael Lempert, author of Discipline and Debate: The Language of Violence in a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery Geoff Childs  is Professor of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. His previous works include  Tibetan Diary: From Birth to Death and Beyond in a Himalayan Valley of Nepal .   Namgyal Choedup  completed a PhD in anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He conducts research on migration and identity politics in the Tibetan diaspora.  From a Trickle to a Torrent Education, Migration, and Social Change in a Himalayan Valley of Nepal By Geoff Childs, Namgyal Choedup UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Copyright © 2019 The Regents of the University of California All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-520-29952-8 Contents List of Illustrations, List of Tables, Acknowledgments, 1. Predicaments, Presumptions, and Procedures, 2. Moving In before Moving Out, 3. Embedding the Household in the Village, 4. Whither the Young People?, 5. Becoming Monks, 6. Becoming Nuns, 7. Becoming Students, 8. The Household Succession Quandary, 9. The Transformative Potential of Educational Migration, 10. Nubri Futures?, Appendix: The Population of Nubri,