Women and Migration : Anthropological Perspectives

by Meier, Barbara; Knorr, Jacqueline

• ISBN13: 9780312232399
• ISBN10: 031223239X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-07-06
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

All contributions to this book to this volume describe women as social actors within specific migration processes and point out women's creativity in shaping migrant settings. This perspective counter-balances common descriptions of women as more or less invisible and dependent of male migration. At the same time the anthropological approach ensures the careful consideration and analysis of the culturally specific contexts, within which the different processes of migration are taking place. Regional and cultural diversity of the data presented renders possible intercultural comparison of the investigated phenomena.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	7	(2)
Women and migration: anthropological perspectives	9	(12)
Jacqueline Knorr
Barbara Meier
Part I Transformations of gender relations and female identities in the context of migration
Mafa women and migration	21	(42)
Jose van Santen
Juliette Schaafsma
Female identities in a ``globalized village'': a case study of South Lebanese migration to West Africa	63	(17)
Anja Peleikis
Female secret societies and their impact on ethnic and trans-ethnic identities among migrant women in Freetown, Sierra Leone	80	(19)
Jacqueline Knorr
Afro-Caribbean carnival as ethnic empowerment and migrant organization: image building and women's changing role in contemporary carnival	99	(20)
Patricia Tamara Alleyne-Dettmers
Religious concepts in the process of migration: Puerto Rican female spiritists in the United States	119	(16)
Bettina E. Schmidt
Part II Female networks and decision-making strategies in migrant settings
Ethnic networks in women's migration: a comparative study of Jewish and Italian women in New York, 1870-1924	135	(16)
Kathie Friedman Kasaba
Men's migrant labor and its effects on gender relations in rural Zimbabwe	151	(13)
Rita Schafer
``One day, we will return home'': Turkana women migration and remigration	164	(17)
Ulrike Schultz
Migrant women's associations in Ghana: the case of the female chief and female chain migration	181	(16)
Barbara Meier
``Pioneers in the Lake'': female migrants in the Lake Chad region of northeastern Nigeria	197	(15)
Editha Platte
African-Swiss women's social networks	212	(23)
Claudia Roth
Chinwe Ifejika Speranza
Part III Self presentation in female migrants' biographies and narratives
First generation Italian female migrants in Germany	235	(14)
Ingeborg Philipper
Strategic narratives: Latin American women as social actors of their biographies	249	(18)
Sandra Gruner-Domic
Contributors	267