Social and Public Policy Researcher, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Saroj Koirala is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His key research interests include migration theory, culture of migration, aspiration and emotion, geographical imagination, and livelihood and environmental change in the global South. His doctoral project investigates why migration persists as a normalized and often expected life trajectory across many societies. His work explores how historical patterns, emotional logics, and geographical imagination shape migration decisions and experiences. His broader work has also examined the consequences of transnational migration on rural livelihoods, left-behind households, and gender relations, as well as environmental and water-resource dynamics in South Asia.

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Education

Doctor of Philosophy (Social and Public Policy)

Expected Graduation: August 2026 Jyväskylä, Finland

University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Researching contemporary transnational migration cultures, focusing on the concepts of ‘rahar’ (aspirational desire) and ‘badhyata’ (socio-economic necessity) and their impacts on rural Nepal sustainability.

January 2022 – August 2026 Jyväskylä, Finland

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Master of Science (International Environmental Studies)

Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway

Advanced thesis and research in environmental policy analysis, climate change adaptation strategies, and global natural resource management.

Graduated: June 2015 Ås, Norway

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Bachelor of Science (International Environment and Development Studies)

Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway

Interdisciplinary study combining environmental science, developmental economics, and political ecology.

Aspiration, emotion and imagination in culture of migration

Doctoral dissertation

My doctoral dissertation argues that people keep migrating even when it’s risky and uncertain because migration has become part of the culture itself, and not just an economic decision. Migration decisions are also shaped by shared emotions, social pressure, and the way people imagine places and life abroad. Using fieldwork in Nepal and Finland, I show that desire and obligation to migrate work together, not separately, and that the “culture of migration” is what actually turns them into the decision to leave.

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Experiences

Part-Time University Teacher (Spring 2026)

University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Taught the specialized course YKPS3102 Migration Policy (5 ECTS). Focus areas included contemporary global migration trends, sociological theories, and governance frameworks. Duties involved designing curriculum, leading seminars, and evaluating students.

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Guest Lecturer (2018-2022)

Kathmandu University School of Arts (KUSoA), Nepal

Designed and delivered postgraduate courses for the Master’s Program in Natural Resource System Management. Lectured on sustainable resource governance, environmental policy, and research methods.

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Researcher (2017-2020)

Institute for Mountain Hazard and Environment (IMHE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Contributed as a researcher to the international collaborative project ‘The cascading impacts of climate change upon water availability and livelihood in Koshi River Basin of Nepal.’ Focused on spatial water stress and community-level adaptations.

Graduated: January 2015Ås, Norway

Conferences & Workshops Participation

Saroj Koirala actively presents his findings at major European and global workshops.

7th November 2024

“Seeking Greener Pastures: conceptualizing rahar and badhyata in Nepali culture of migration”

Presented at: ETMU Conference: Culture of migration: Exploring Migration as a Normative Behaviour

📍 Tampere, Finland

Event Link

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26th – 28th of September 2025

“Visualizing Migration: Digital Media and the Cultural Imaginaries of Migration in Global South”

Presented at: The 18th Next-Generation Global Workshop

📍 Kyoto University, Japan

Event Link

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23 October 2025

“Imagination, (Dis)trust, and (im)Mobility: South Asian Migrants’ Negotiations of Belonging in Finland”

Presented at: Social Policy Conference 2025

📍 Helsinki, Finland

Event Link

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Literary Venture & Satire

The Algomist

Debut Novel by Saroj Koirala

algomist/’æl-gə-mɪst/ n.

one who understands the algorithm and bends it to his own purpose; a person who learns the hidden rules by which attention is bought and sold and uses them to rise.

[a word that did not exist when this story began, for a kind of person the world had not yet learned to name]

The Algomist is his debut novel, born from the similar questions that drive his research, carried this time through story rather than study.

The Algomist is about the rise of Udaya. A young man who from his small room in Kathmandu, teaches himself the hidden rules by which attention is bought and sold on the internet. He is not a coder. Not an engineer. He is something the world had not yet learned to name: a reader of invisible levers, a man who looks at the same screen everyone looks at and sees, where others see distraction, a machine for moving millions.

From his first five dollars earned online to the corridors of Norwegian universities, from viral content mills to the manufacturing of a political movement, Udaya rises by building an empire of outrage, crafting a nation’s anger into a weapon, and placing a face the country trusts at the top of it.

“His name, in his language, means the rising. The dawn. The coming of a thing into the light.”

But the machine he builds has no conscience. And the fire he lights from behind a screen does not stay behind the screen.

Set against the fractured democracy of contemporary Nepal, The Algomist is a compulsively readable novel about ambition, complicity, and the terrifying efficiency of systems built to reward the most enraging version of the truth. It asks the questions our era does not want to answer: Who is truly responsible when a nation burns? The face the crowd carries into the street, or the unseen hand that made them carry it?