Paper short abstract:

This paper is an ethnographic study of various forms of sexual and psychological repressions and the practice of agency of the left behind women in a Gulf migrant village in rural Bangladesh following the migration of their husbands abroad.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is an ethnographic description of various forms of sexual and psychological repressions and the practice of agency of the left behind women following the migration of their husbands abroad. In doing so, I explored everyday happenings in the personal life of women when they are in prolonged loneliness from their husbands. I also explored their strategies to cope with the members of their husbands' households and the society in adverse situation. The study was conducted applying participant observation method along with its different techniques in a Gulf migrant village for one year in Munshigonj, Bangladesh. Data showed that through their mobility in household and public spaces, women shape and reshape their gendered boundary and increasingly contest its meanings. But their mobility in the public sphere is carefully observed and they remain under subtle and invisible surveillance and regulation in the name of ethics, morality, norms and values of the patriarchal Muslim society. Sexuality is repressed in the village where all kinds of sex acts, except husband and wife, are strictly prohibited. But women are reproached and stigmatized much more if they do anything prohibited. But the data showed that women are not always passive victims rather they strategize to establish their position. Hence, contextualizing structure and agency, the study investigated how women are influenced by patriarchal structure and how they play role to transform the structure through their activities and resistance in the absence of their husbands.