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migration tend to imitate the behavior of the wealthier returnees so thatthey can also secure a higher status. Non-migrants, for their part, try theirbest to keep up.These are some of the elements of the complicated interplay of factorsthat take place in rural communities which experience a large-scaletemporary migration of predominantly lower-income migrants. In addition,arrangements to send and receive the remittances have to be made by themigrant households, and control over local economic transactions anddecisions (which the male migrant would generally have exercised hadhe been locally resident) has to be transferred to another person. Thereare thus several common processes that migrant households and migrantcommunities undergo.Differences in these common processes result from modifications whichare structured to fit the social and “cultural matrix” in which the communityis situated (Parry and Bloch1989). Veni, Cherur, and Kembu were part ofthe Mappila (Keralite Muslim), Ezhava (lower-caste Keralite Hindu), andSyrian Christian (upper-caste Keralite Christian) communities respectively.In addition to the fact that the emigrant communities in question practicedthree different religions, there were other fundamental differences of socialstructure and culture. Thus they differed in family and community structure,inheritance systems, gender roles, occupations, economic position, andeducational attainments, to name only the most salient of factors. It is due tothese multidimensional differences between the communities that I definethem as “ethnic” groups (see Kurien 2002). My argument in this article isthat the large scale migration to the Middle East of lower-class migrantsand their rapid enrichment brought about a reconstruction of the ethnicidentities of the three communities. Economic choices are an importantway in which personal and group identities are expressed and I willdemonstrate how the patterns of consumption, investment, and exchangeundertaken by the groups as a consequence of migration manifested as wellas shaped their ethnic structures and identities.4. The Three Economic PatternsIn this section, the three communities, each in a different geographicalregion and “Gulf pocket” of Kerala, are described and the patterns ofmigration from them and the manner in which the remittances from theGulf have been used by each are discussed. As mentioned above, therewere some broad similarities in the expenditure patterns of the areas. Inall cases, for example, house construction was undertaken and migrantsbrought back electronic consumer durables and clothing from the Middle195