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- Convenors:
-
Anais Ménard
(Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
Andréa de Lobo (University of Brasília)
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- Discussant:
-
Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg
(Carleton College)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Mode:
- Online
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
Building on scholarship that focuses on West African women’s central role in processes of international mobility, this panel questions academic (and public) tropes of disempowerment by looking at the ways women challenge gender patterns and build power in their societies of origin and of migration.
Long Abstract:
Recent scholarship regarding West African migration explores economic rationales and social aspirations driving international mobilities. Many such analyses remain gender-blind, overwhelmingly depicting West African migrants as young men, often illegalized. Despite their nuanced approach to migration processes, anthropologists have participated in reproducing clichés of powerlessness about West African women who migrate, emphasizing how gender hierarchies — such as dependence on family reunification — render women vulnerable and constrain their socioeconomic opportunities. Some anthropological authors have begun to undo these academic (and public) tropes by noting the intersections between women’s reproductive and care work and their agentic roles in initiating and shaping transnational mobilities. Recent studies have revealed West African women’s central positions in the circulation of migratory capital, as leaders in their diasporic neighbourhoods and as creators of transnational networks. This panel extends such work of undoing by focusing on the ways in which West African women challenge gender patterns and reconfigure notions of power in their societies of origin and of migration. It emphasizes women’s autonomous (if embedded) trajectories, as central actors of their own migration. It contextualizes women in their national histories and post-immigration contexts and challenges narratives of disempowerment by investigating how women appropriate and use various West African imaginaries of power in contexts of migration. The panel invites papers that explore the various ways women build their own socioeconomic pathways, achieve social recognition, mobilize female-based networks, and circumvent or use gender norms in their own interests.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2024, -Andréa de Lobo (University of Brasília)
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to address the stories of African women migrants. Based on two life stories, I intend to explore the ways in which these women activated networks of care at a distance, becoming central to their families and communities.
Paper long abstract:
This paper aims to address the stories of African women migrants. Based on two life stories, I intend to explore the ways in which these women activated networks of care at a distance, becoming central to their families. I will present the trajectories of Maria and Clementine, both from Cape Verde, the first one having emigrated to France and the second to Senegal.
My intention is to discuss the women's migratory networks from an intersectional perspective, moving away from the logic of emigration for family reunification and emphasising the autonomous trajectories of women who open new networks and become central "nodes" in the mobility processes of other women. I'm approaching a literature that have drawn attention to the ways in which colonialism and nationalism in African nations have similarly worked to suppress women's voices in liberation movements and their role in supporting families. But are African women, as gendered and racialised subjects of Western colonialism and local movements, disempowered? Recent research has shown that they are not. Despite the countless racial, gender and labour inequalities imposed on them, many of these women occupy central positions in the circulation of migratory capital in their communities; they assume leadership positions in diasporic neighbourhoods and challenge the gender patterns of their societies.
From this perspective and using ethnographic data from their life stories, I intend to emphasise the place of these women in their family and community networks, and the continuities and discontinuities of migratory trajectories in a south-north and south-south direction.
Marzia Mauriello (Università di Napoli L'Orientale)
Paper short abstract:
Commencing with a reflection on the role of food as a tool for agency, power, and emancipation among African migrant women in Naples, the presentation delves into the story of a well-known activist within migrant communities in the city—an Ivorian woman who plays a central role in my fieldwork.
Paper long abstract:
My presentation will recount the life stories of African migrant women that I have been collecting over the past four years during my fieldwork in the city of Naples, with a specific focus on women's food practices as a key element in the homemaking processes within migrant communities. I will begin with a reflection on the role of food as a tool for agency, power, and emancipation for migrant women from West Africa living in the city. Subsequently, I will present the specific case and life story of Fatou, a woman from the Ivory Coast who, besides playing a pivotal role in my fieldwork as my gatekeeper and principal interlocutor, is a well-known activist and supporter of diverse migrant collectivities present in the territory. In the past few years, Fatou has been the promoter and organizer of several transnational cooperation projects and initiatives between her country of origin and Naples, which has been her second home for the past twenty years. Fatou, along with some other women I have encountered so far, serves as an exceptional example of strength, tenacity, resistance, and positivity within a hostile and male-centered environment.
Vinícius Venancio (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
Paper short abstract:
In this work, I aim to ethnographically describe the story of "Dona Fátima", one of the main figures in the Bissau-Guinean associations in Cape Verde. I want to understand how "big women" are made in this context, based on her trajectory of flows and power of regiment of people.
Paper long abstract:
The phrase "I don't have money, but I have my people" was said to me by Dona Fatima (a fictitious name used to protect the identity of my interlocutor) during one of our conversations in which passers-by repeatedly greeted her with respect and honour. From the use of the vocabulary of kinship to the material honours she received, there were different ways of constructing her distinction. No wonder she was known as the "mother" of the only association of women of Bissau-Guinean origin in Cape Verde.
Dona Fátima's life story has the Atlantic flows at its heart. She began her life as an immigrant in the United States, lived in Cape Verde for about 20 years and then moved to Portugal for health reasons. Based on the conversations and moments shared with this "big woman", the aim of this paper is not only to understand the role she played in the Bissau-Guinean community in Praia, but also to point out the centrality of women in the social reproduction of this community in Cape Verde.
The data presented here comes from my doctoral fieldwork, carried out in Praia (May-November 2022; May and July 2023) and Lisbon (June 2023).
Meng Kou (École Normale Supérieure de Paris)
Paper short abstract:
Has the situation of African women migrants changed for the new generation in post-colonial and neoliberal France? In this study, we focus on how they struggle with the tragic image of passivity in real life when their lives are affected by sickle cell disease.
Paper long abstract:
The migratory experience of West African women is often given tragic overtones, as they become reproductive instruments for their husbands, work in caregiving jobs, endure the absence of an emotional life in a polygamous system, and continue to feed free labour into family life. They seldom show their voices.
In this study, we focus on how they struggle with the tragic image of passivity in real life when their lives are affected by sickle cell disease. Starting in May 2022, the researcher conducted observations in a public hospital in Paris with 56 clinical cases. This was followed by access to an association of sickle cell disease patients for in-depth interviews.
The resistance of West African women is reflected in the fight against the denial of reproductive sovereignty by genetically defective diseases in Western medicine, against the lack of action against sickle cell disease in French public health policy, and in various health activist actions. We will present how female migrants fight for health sovereignty, resist patriarchy, and present their subjectivity through a study of a Beninese mother and a Guinean mother.
Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg (Carleton College)
Paper short abstract:
In Berlin, Germany, Cameroonian immigrant women undo the disempowerment they face by asserting their parenting expertise vis-à-vis official social actors (e.g., teachers, social workers) and gaining expert reputations status by advising more recent arrivals in their immigrant community.
Paper long abstract:
When they migrate to Europe, mobile West African women face disempowerment and status loss vis-à-vis social actors and institutions in their destination societies. In their roles as parents, they experience teachers’, social workers’, pediatricians’, and other official actors’ mistrust and assumptions of “neglect” or “harmful” practices. Often based on misunderstandings, these negative encounters can have serious consequences for the mother’s dignity, the children’s developing sense of self, and even for parental custody. Some mobile West African women successfully undo their disempowerment by asserting their parenting expertise toward official social actors. They gain further status within immigrant communities by advising their fellow migrants about good parenting practices as well as strategies for interacting with official, credentialized parenting “experts” within the destination-society.
This contribution addresses the changing and contested nature of parenting expertise in Cameroonian Berlin. It explores how different groups of social actors construct sometimes contrasting, sometimes overlapping notions of “good” parenting, and how they contest who counts as a parenting expert. It reveals transformations over time—in the content and sources of parenting advice, its modes of transmission, and its audiences—as the Cameroonian diasporic community has grown and become more heterogeneous. Finally, the contribution proposes that Cameroonian immigrant women who develop a reputation for mothering expertise gain status in other realms of African immigrant community life, and undergo self-realization that is crucial in their search for dignity in an otherwise disrespecting environment.
Kezia Aryeetey (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how Ghanaian women in Germany who do not meet the culturally acceptable standards of successful womanhood leverage their migration to re-invent and re-position themselves as financial advisors, entrepreneurs, matchmakers, and community leaders.
Paper long abstract:
Globalisation, education, and migration have played a role in changing attitudes towards socially and culturally prescribed gender roles and norms. In West Africa, a woman’s success is often heavily influenced by her ability to conform to the expected cultural norms of her society. Migration, therefore, offers an opportunity for migrants to discard cultural values and norms from the origin society that no longer serve them while preserving those that do. In addition, for women, migration, especially migration to the Global North, provides economic opportunities as well as social and legal protections that allow them to secure their positions, gain status and garner influence both within the migrant community and in their communities of origin.
This paper explores the ways migrant women from Ghana living in Germany leverage their migration to change attitudes and perceptions of their ‘failures” in order to create new pathways of gaining respect and influence. In particular the paper focuses on divorced women, single mothers, and women in unconventional or “non-traditional relationships”. These women who would otherwise be viewed as having failed to meet the socially accepted standard of womanhood (marriage and children within the boundaries of marriage) have instead used their access to social and economic resources in Germany to “re-invent and re-position” themselves in new arenas as financial advisors, entrepreneurs, matchmakers and community leaders primarily to other women in Ghana, Germany and the diaspora in order to help these women to become upwardly mobile themselves.
Monica Ibanez Angulo (University of Burgos)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the role of tontines, an informal system of credit and savings popular among West African women, in the migratory context: types; motivations for participating; membership and modus-operandi; economic and sociocultural dimensions; and configuration of transnational tontines.
Paper long abstract:
Tontines, also known as ROSCAs constitute an informal system of credit and savings associations consisting of several people, usually women, who pool their money together and distribute the savings according to the stipulated periodicity, with each of the participants taking her turn to receive the money collected from the group. Tontines constitute a very popular type of informal microfinance strategy among small-scale networks of women in different West African countries, where they play an essential role in the economic, social and cultural fields.
In the migratory context, tontines also constitute a fundamental economic, social, and cultural strategy among West African women (and men). This paper will illustrate the interrelationships between, the socio-economic characteristics of the migratory context (e.g. the labor market), and the configuration of transnational tontines: (i) types of tontines; (ii) motivations for participating (or not) in a tontine; (iii) membership and functioning of tontines; (iv) economic dimension of tontines (to facilitate savings and provide credits); and (v) sociocultural dimension of tontines (diversification and strengthening of networks based on trust, solidarity, and cooperation).
This research is based on ethnographic fieldwork involving women and men born in Senegal and Gambia and residing in Burgos or Calella either permanently or seasonally, who participate and/or have participated in one or multiple tontines, both in the migratory context and in their home country.
My main contribution to academic research is the identification of a specific migrants’ tontine constituted by seasonal workers in the tourism sector that I have denominated "seasonal tontine".
Lydia Amoah (University of Ghana, Legon)
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between Asantehemaa's court, market women, and market/commodity queens from selected markets in the Ashanti region of Ghana. I examine how women ensure that their economic power is not diminished but rather leverage their relationship with traditional space to secure their economic interest even against the state apparatus such as the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly. The Informal economy is the largest sector in the Ghanaian economy- accounting for almost 35.6% of the Gross Domestic Product. This sector is largely occupied by the poor and vulnerable which includes women. The marketplace is where such informality is largely concentrated. The study was derived from an ethnographic study of customary dispute resolution at the Asantehemaa’s court in Kumasi which further led me to interrogate market women and their connections to the court. The market women form associations with similar interests in trade to wield both political and economic power. Their leaders are referred to as market/commodity queens corrupted as 'helliman'. These queens have considerable access to the seat of Asante traditional governance; Asantehene and Asantehemaa, channeling their grievances through them. Thus, market women leverage their economic power by employing a social network of persons in the traditional circles leading to influence in political circles. They draw political power from both local and state sources. The queens use their position as market representatives on the market management board to bid for commercial space for their members and discuss market-related issues such as sanitation, taxes, tolls, and fines with the KMA.
Anais Ménard (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the moral and symbolic capital that Sierra Leonean women deploy in order to build relations of patronage and gain influence in diaspora spaces. This capital enables them to become ‘big women’ – namely, self-sufficient women who are respected among peers for their achievements.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines how Sierra Leonean female migrants achieve certain forms of power and influence within diaspora spaces. The concept of ‘big men’ developed in the literature has focused heavily on men’s performance of power in West African contexts – namely, how elder men secure their position by controlling youth labor and other economic and social assets. This approach leaves little space to analyses of how women build similar positions. Among Sierra Leonean women who live in Europe, the expression ‘big woman’ qualifies a woman who is able to stand ‘without a man’ economically and socially. She has established her own position in the host society, is self-sufficient and often lives alone. Yet, Sierra Leonean women also achieve and consolidate the status of ‘big woman’ in diaspora spaces by using strategies grounded in culturally-specific understandings of power. Relations of patronage, in this regard, appear critical to gaining influence and performing power: ‘helping’ others who have arrived more recently, for instance, is a way for creating long-term relations of indebtedness and conferring prestige to the ‘helper’. Yet, women also use a different type of moral and symbolic capital to build their image as patrons: ‘big women’ also act as protective figures of the community as a whole, whose presence and advice is sought for. Women thus appropriate a redeploy a specific imaginary of power within migration and reinterpret it in a gendered perspective. These strategies allow them to access a higher status and a position of influence among peers.