Gender,households and reintegration: everyday lives of returned migrant women in rural northern Ghana

Since the late 1990s, migration of single women from the rural north to the urban south in Ghana has been making up a growing share of migrant streams. While the livelihood strategies of these migrant women in their southern destinations have been recently examined, the experience of reintegration for those who return to their place of origin has rarely been studied. Drawing on qualitative research with migrant women, returned migrant women (RMW) and their family members, this study examines everyday reintegration experiences of RMW within their households in a rural Dagomba community in Northern Region, Ghana. We conceptualise the household as an arena of everyday life wherein RMW exercise agency to learn to generate livelihoods that support their own as well as household members’ joint well-being. We combine this conceptualisation of household with feminist scholars’ recognition of gender as situated process. Our conceptualisation makes it possible to illuminate gender dynamics around the everyday repetitive decision-making acts that constitute livelihood generation as performed by RMW within specific intra-household dynamics in the context of reintegration in the situated community. Through the examination of the diverse and contradictory ways in which RMW exercise agency in making decisions about livelihood strategies within their households in the studied community, we show how the everyday repetitive acts of RMW contribute to micro-transformations of a situated gender ideology.     

GENDERED SPACES ON TRIAL: THE INFLUENCE OF REGIONAL GENDER CONTRACTS ON IN‐MIGRATION OF WOMEN TO RURAL NORWAY

While the Nordic literature on rural migration and gender relations has usually focused on the push effects of a patriarchal or traditional gender culture on out‐migration of women, this article centres on the conjoint way in which regional gender contracts and female in‐migration shape one another. On the basis of survey data of women who migrated into Valdres, a rural area in Norway, as well as interview material, three ideal types of rural gender contracts are identified: traditional, modern and alternative. It is further demonstrated that women living by a traditional gender contract are more often attracted to Valdres than women living by modern and alternative gender contracts, and seemingly also tend to stay for a longer period of time. With the help of Halfacree's model of rural space, it is argued that the in‐migration of women serves just as much to sustain the region's traditional gender contract as to challenge it.     

Rural–Urban Migration and Gender Disparities in Child Healthcare in China and India

This article assesses the impact of rural–urban migration on gender disparities in children's access to healthcare in China and India. Much research has shown widespread discrimination against girl children in both countries, including in health investments, contributing to the well‐known problem of Asia's ‘missing’ women. Much less clear is the impact of the massive rural–urban migration now occurring in China and India on discrimination against daughters. Migration is usually thought to have a positive effect on child health, because of improved access to healthcare facilities, but this is not necessarily equally beneficial for both sons and daughters. Based on fourteen months of fieldwork with rural migrant families in Shenzhen (China) and Mumbai (India), this article argues that where migration improves access to healthcare, it may increase rather than decrease the gender gap in treatment of child illness in the short term, as resources are concentrated on the treatment of sons. Furthermore, it is not the case that rural–urban migration necessarily leads to better access to healthcare even for sons: some forms of migration may actually have an overall negative effect on child health outcomes. For these two reasons, development strategies focusing on large‐scale rural–urban migration should not be seen as a short‐term solution to problems of gender inequity in child health.     

Factory ‘nuns’: the ethnicization of migrant labor in the making of Tibetan carpets

Many debates over migrant labor politics in contemporary China rely upon essentialist notions of ethnic identity. In contrast, I identify migrant labor politics as transnational processes through which women migrants from rural Tibet become ethnic workers. Drawing on post-colonial theories of ethnicity and on feminist literature on global capitalism, this article analyzes the uses of migrant laborers in a globalizing Tibetan carpet industry. First, I investigate the making of Tibetan carpets and the essentialist construction of ‘carpet weavers’ employed by Tibetan–Nepalese carpet factory owners, carpet dealers in New York City, and various participants in Lhasa, including party cadres, international non-government organizations (NGOs), and overseas investors. I argue that the functioning of the international carpet business relies upon the ethnicization of migrant labor, in which labor subjugation involves creating ethnic subjects and ethnicized boundaries. This form of labor commodification is driven by both an economic logic and a moral imperative for preserving or regenerating ‘ethnic culture.’ Second, through the lens of gender, I look closely at the ethnicization of migrant labor in post-socialist Lhasa, analyzing its significance for the labor force in the carpet industry. The women carpet weavers, who mostly come from Tibet's rural areas, I found, strive to reconcile their desires for female autonomy with labor positions that reduce them to strangers in the city. Some women attempt to overcome their experiences of alienation while actively engaging in the reproduction of the patriarchal family as well as in labor hierarchies at work.     

Gendered networks and migration decision-making in Northern Vietnam

This paper examines the gender aspect of migrant networks, particularly the different ways networks are expected to assist men's or women's migration during migration decision-making processes. Through the case study of a farming community in Northern Vietnam, it shows that migrant networks are not gender neutral and, more importantly, men and women capitalise on different functions of networks to facilitate their migratory endeavours. Whilst men tend to be connected to relatively more extended networks primarily for practical support, women are more likely to be tied to family networks, which provide them with not just information and practical support but also social protection. These gender-specific expectations and uses of migrant networks have important implications for men's and women's mobility. The paper provides new insights into the way migration choices are made by men and women and at the same time underscores the importance of understanding migrant networks in researching migration.     

Constructions of Filipina Migrant Entertainers

While international labor migration from South and South-east Asia has received a considerable amount of attention in academic circles, a feminist discourse is largely ignored. This ignorance is reflected in a dearth of materials on women labor migrants, as well as explicit considerations of gender. Discussions of Filipina migrant entertainers commonly emphasize poverty as the primary determinant of their movement. Evidence does suggest that unemployment in the Philippines has contributed to their search for overseas employment. However, this discourse has kept hidden other institutionalized forms of oppression that continuously and simultaneously affect Filipina migrant entertainers. In particular, the concrete realities of their gender, race, and nationality have been replaced by a reductionist overemphasis on economic factors. Through an examination of government and private institutions engaged in the recruitment, deployment, regulation, and protection of overseas contract workers, I identify and deconstruct four controlling images of Filipina migrant entertainers: the Other; the prostitute; the willing victim; and the heroine. I argue that these reflect the observer's intention, objectives, and motives in addressing the situation of Filipina migrant entertainers. Specifically, these representations of Filipina migrant entertainers have been socially constructed to rationalize and justify the existing material conditions encountered by the women. This analysis transcends more traditional migration studies that focus predominantly on a single factor- economics-to the exclusion of other interrelated aspects, such as gender, race, and nationality. The discussion addresses the epistemological foundations of how the migration of Filipina entertainers is contextualized.     

Negotiating gender dynamics in heteronormativity: extramarital intimacy among migrant Filipino workers in South Korea

This article examines the liminal space that exists both as a structural condition engendered by transnational migration and as a state that is self-consciously carved out by migrants. It demonstrates that this space provides the grounds for migrants to develop ‘deviant heterosexuality’, such as extramarital relationships while simultaneously causing dilemmas and contestation of gender dynamics in conjugal and familial relationships. Drawing on ethnographic research and in-depth interviews, I elucidate the extramarital relationships among migrant Filipino workers in South Korea. By incorporating discussions of ‘queer heterosexualities’ and Hubbard's geographical engagement of sexuality into analysis, I argue that migrants' extramarital practices are shaped not only by dominant discourse, but also through the particular social and spatial positioning of individuals. First, I demonstrate that the liminal space gives migrant Filipino workers a certain degree of autonomy from the power and ideological interventions of both sending and host societies. Second, I highlight the liminal space that is extended by migrants themselves, especially through the increasing economic ability and mobility of migrant women, which can reconfigure the modes of heteronormativity and gender structure in conjugal, familial and extramarital relationships. In the end, I argue that transnational migration results not only in provisional liminality but also prolonged liminality through migrants' initiative in pursuing their desired heterosexuality and their endeavour to convert extramarital relationships into long-term intimacy. This study contributes to the discussion of the interplay between heterosexuality/heteronormativity and gender in recent human migration.     

Family education support to rural migrant children in China: evidence from Shenzhen

Rural migrant children have become a fast-growing population in China as a consequence of the large-scale population flow from rural to urban areas. Besides the dual-structure hukou system, which restrains rural migrants from upward mobility, family capital also plays an important role in providing family educational support to rural migrant children. Using the data from P District and N District of Shenzhen in 2013, this paper explores the present status of three dimensions of family capital and five aspects of family educational support to Chinese rural migrant children, as well as the correlation between family capital and family educational support from perspectives of migration status (hukou), life course (children’s age), and school type. Constrained by inadequate family capital in multiple dimensions manifested by less education, lower income, and limited social networks, etc., parents of rural migrant children provide less family educational support in nearly every aspect compared with parents of urban local children. Among rural migrant children, those in private migrant schools receive the least support from their parents.     

Migrant mothers,left-behind fathers: the negotiation of gender subjectivities in Indonesia and the Philippines

The distinct feminization of labour migration in Southeast Asia – particularly in the migration of breadwinning mothers as domestic and care workers in gender-segmented global labour markets – has altered care arrangements, gender roles and practices, as well as family relationships within the household significantly. Such changes were experienced by both the migrating women and other left-behind members of the family, particularly ‘substitute’ carers such as left-behind husbands. During the women’s absence from the home, householding strategies have to be reformulated when migrant women-as-mothers rewrite their roles (but often not their identities) through labour migration as productive workers who contribute to the well-being of their children via financial remittances and ‘long-distance mothering’, while left-behind fathers and/or other family members step up to assume some of the tasks vacated by the mother. Using both quantitative and qualitative interview material with returned migrants and left-behind household members in source communities in Indonesia and the Philippines experiencing considerable pressures from labour migration, this article explores how carework is redistributed in the migrant mother’s absence, and the ensuing implications on the gender roles of remaining family members, specifically left-behind fathers. It further examines how affected members of the household negotiate and respond to any changing gender ideologies brought about by the mother’s migration over time.     

‘Filial son’, the family and identity formation among male migrant workers in urban China

This article is based on an ethnographic study of life histories of 28 rural–urban (internal) migrant men located within southern China. It explores their narratives with a particular focus on changing social relations within the family, from the perspective of migrant sons. It argues that traditional gender norms, such as those attached to being a ‘filial son’, are lived out, albeit reworked, among Chinese male migrant workers across generations. The men recount the role of traditional familial gender norms, which are central cultural resources in forging their ‘dislocated’ identities within specific temporal and spatial conditions. For example, being a ‘filial son’ has become an important reference point for these mobile male workers to actively negotiate their emerging masculine identities in the process of negotiating urban lives, while living away from their rural homes. The article also explores a more complex understanding of rural–urban migration in terms of critically engaging with the men's well-being as urban workers.     

En route to New York: diasporic networks and the reconfiguration of female entrepreneurship in Senegal

This article examines the influence of migration and transnational social networks on female entrepreneurship. It interrogates shifting patterns of market development, juxtaposed to the lure of new economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs located at the periphery, Senegal. I critically analyse how a distinct and classed category of Senegalese women entrepreneurs navigates international spaces and legal restrictions in attempts to launch profitable economic ventures in metropolitan centres such as New York City and negotiate new forms of representation and agency in contentious socio-economic spaces. By interrogating the complex interplay between women entrepreneurs and diasporic communities, I weave an often-missing gender perspective into the analysis of the emergence of female transnational entrepreneurship and diasporic social networks. This article demonstrates that diasporic social networks, transnational markets and spatial interconnections, while contributing to market revitalisation and expansion, are nonetheless fraught with tension. Diasporic social networks embody paradoxical positions. They represent an enabling economic transactional space, while embodying an informal social space that nonetheless remains sites of power struggles deeply embedded in gendered, sociocultural and economic dynamics that transfer from local to transnational contexts.     

Transnational families,religious participation and gender dynamics: Filipino,Sao Tomean and Indo-Mozambican immigrant women in Lisbon,Portugal

In addition to being the object of policy and legal initiatives, families of migrant origin have become a focus of debate concerning differences and its limits. Migrants themselves, however, are also reflecting on how to manage family relationships in a changing world in which migration is mostly transnational. This article aims to discuss the influence of religious participation on the reconfiguration of processes of family dynamics promoted by three groups of migrant women who, while settled in Lisbon, maintain transnational ties with their countries of origin and with various diasporic spaces. Guiding research questions are: to what extent does religious participation provide migrant women with connections, networks and other intangible resources? How are these resources mobilised as ‘bonding' and ‘bridging' social capitals? Can such capitals become a conduit for the redefinition of family relations and female self-narratives? Comparative analysis confirms that the three groups discussed not only mobilise religious belonging and ties to generate resources, but also convert these connections into social (and other forms of) capital, thus triggering desired changes that affect the lives of their children and families in both the short and long term. While migration does not alter long-standing patterns provided by their own respective sociocultural frames of belonging, our findings reveal that the three groups of interlocutors use religious participation to explore tactics, social capitals and mobility spaces and, further, to negotiate, without subverting, specific family inequality dynamics.     

Film-viewing in Turkish and Moroccan diasporic families: a gender and place perspective

This article explores the relation between gender identities and spatial aspects of audience reception by means of a case study on film-viewing in the Turkish and Moroccan diasporic communities in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Drawing on feminist and gender approaches to audience reception on the one hand, and research into the spatial dynamics underlying audience reception on the other, we look at film-viewing as a socially and spatially meaningful practice that is relevant for the understanding of gender identities in diasporic families. This article is based on the results of a four-year project on diasporic film cultures in Antwerp that investigated how film-viewing practices relate to social and cultural dynamics within the Turkish and Moroccan communities. The data that are discussed include participant observations, in-depth interviews and group interviews with a varied sample of people with Turkish and Moroccan backgrounds. The results show that although film-viewing, especially in the public space of the film theatre, can be mobilized by women as an emancipating social practice, gendered power structures often prevail. Also in the domestic contexts, a more traditional gender division is articulated by the respondent concerning family viewing. We conclude that the space of the film theatre and film-going serve the continuity and stability of gendered family relations, rather than subverting them.     

‘DOING FAMILY’

Drawing on a case study of married female migrants from two rural villages of Hung Yen province to Hanoi City, Vietnam, this paper investigates the implications of female migration on gender roles and relations within families. The paper shows that wives' migration changes gender roles and relations within the family. Being on the move, migrant wives become the main breadwinners while their husbands left behind take on the role of carers. The migrant wives acquire a stronger voice in family matters and a strong sense of pride, worthiness and earned respect, whereas their husbands experience a loss of power. However, these changing gender roles and relations rarely result in family fragmentations; instead, families are still being sustained as migrant wives ‘do family’. By ‘doing family’, they can exploit their increasing power in an acceptable manner, so that patriarchal family ideals are not openly confronted. This paper provides a more nuanced understanding of the implications of female migration on families, i.e. the simultaneity of the reproduction of and the change in gender roles and relations within families.     

‘I am going,with or without you’: autonomy in Bolivian transnational migrations

Autonomy has often been seen as a precondition for achieving gender equality, yet feminist scholarship has been rather ambivalent towards it. In this article, I explore this ambivalence by drawing on the experiences of migrant women, particularly mothers, focusing on the ways in which they negotiated their mobility with their partners. By analysing women's experiences of migration within a context of multi-sited and longitudinal, itinerant ethnography, I historicise their life accounts and place them within a broader framework of social and economic structural changes. On this basis I explore the concept of autonomy, particularly in relation to the exercise of women's agency within a context of market-oriented neoliberal reforms. I also question the potential of women's autonomy for gender equality and argue that there are at least two reasons for feminist scholars to continue being ambivalent towards autonomy.     

A visceral approach: cooking 'at home' with migrant women in Hamilton, New Zealand

People's visceral experiences of food – the tastes, textures and aromas – can tell us a great deal about their emotional and affective relations with place. Questions of bodies and embodiment are increasingly becoming a focus for geographers and migration scholars. In this article we extend some of this work by examining how the visceral can shape (and be shaped by) a range of socio-political relations. We concentrate on food and eating as a central political issue and illustrate how a visceral approach can push understandings of migrants' experiences. We focus on a group of 11 migrant women from South Africa, Singapore, Korea, Iraq, Thailand, Hong Kong, Somalia, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and India in their 'new home' in Hamilton, New Zealand. Each of the women prepared and cooked for us a dish that was significant to them in some way. These migrant women are comfortable in their domestic spaces and largely experience cooking not as a burden but as an important way of staying viscerally connected with their 'old home'. Creating a domestic space where the body feels 'at home' can help resituate and reconstitute the diasporic subject. This kind of visceral approach is useful for informing the development of social policy.     

The spatial dimension of agency: the everyday urban practices of Filipina domestic workers in Amman,Jordan

This article examines the strategies that Filipina migrant domestic workers in Jordan have developed to create new opportunities within the restrictive Kafala migration system. Based on short-term live-in contracts, the Kafala system tends to confine migrant women to employers’ homes, thus restricting their access to urban amenities and limiting their interactions with co-ethnics. However, Filipina migrant domestic workers transform temporary migration into a longer-term experience by increasing their knowledge of the city and going from live-in workers to live-out or freelance workers. This article contributes to understandings of migrant women’s agency by considering the spatial construction of agency in urban spaces. I argue that space and agency are entwined. In order to highlight the spatial dimension of agency, I use the concept of ‘regime of visibility’ to show how migrant women make their agency visible to others by accessing public spaces. Connecting agency with regimes of visibility allows me to question the place and role of migrant women in urban public spaces. Especially, I analyze that tensions in public spaces are not merely a reaction to the presence of women, but are also intended to prevent the visibility of individual agency.     

“Northern Girls”: Cultural Politics of Agency and South China’s Migrant Literature

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with the cultural politics of agency, and explores the relationship between cultural form, migrant experience and social change. It traces the emergence of a range of literary forms in south China and how these new cultural forms provide hitherto unavailable space to contest the state- and market-driven narratives, which tend to link dagongmei’s (rural migrant women’s) sexuality with inexperience and vulnerability on the one hand, and criminality, immorality and incivility on the other. The paper suggests that these newly emerging cultural forms present alternative perspectives on the practical circumstances, moral rationalities and emotional consequences that condition and shape migrant women’s sexual experience, and for this reason, they constitute important points of intervention.     

Edna O'Brien and narrative diaspora space

Given the persistent presence of migration in the work of Edna O'Brien, it is surprising how marginal a theme it is in critiques of her work. This article explores how questions of diaspora have reached a renewed level of depth and intensity in her novel The Light of Evening (2006) and the related short story ‘My Two Mothers’ (2011). Looking, in particular, at how letters play a central role in the relationships of three generations of Irish women across three countries, it analyses how issues of mother(land), diaspora and belonging are mediated through migrant fiction. It draws on the work of Avtar Brah and Paul Ricoeur to argue that, along with related forms of textuality within O'Brien's oeuvre, letters represent a ‘narrative diaspora space’ which illuminates the relationship between mothers, daughters and writing in Irish migrant experience.