Married to the Mobile: Migration, Gender, Class, and Kinship in Contemporary Senegal Pubblico
Hannaford, Dinah Rebecca (2014)
Abstract
Across the world, neoliberal transnationalism engenders new forms of kinship and
marriage. At the same time, rising inequality, both within and among countries, and the
privatization of public wealth inform the perceived need and the opportunity for new
kinds of kinship and marital flexibility. This dissertation examines a reflection of these
trends in contemporary Senegal in the form of transnational marriages between
Senegalese migrant men and non-migrant women back in Senegal
Limited finances and lack of jobs make it increasingly difficult for Senegalese
men and women to find opportunities for social stability much less financial advancement
within Senegal. Increasingly, they reach outside the country in an attempt to procure
means for building successful social lives within Senegal. For many Senegalese men (and
some women) this entails migration in an attempt to find work abroad --while continuing
to invest in social life at home. Investment at home frequently includes marrying and
forming families with women back in Senegal. For Senegalese women, these same
pressures not infrequently lead them to willingly marry men from Senegal who are
overseas migrants. Many married couples spend years at a time separated by thousands of
miles, with no immediate plans for relocation and reunification.
This dissertation is based on multi-sited, transcontinental research that explored
the phenomenon of transnational marriage through extensive transnational fieldwork and
in-depth interviews among Senegalese migrants living in France and Italy and migrants'
wives in Senegal. Transnational marriages continue to be desirable to both parties,
despite their many challenges, because of a general shift in Senegalese culture that
connects and prioritizes transnational goals with longstanding patterns of Senegalese
kinship and gender relations.
Transnational marriage in Senegal provides a fascinating window into the
entanglement between neoliberal economics and global labor restructuring and local
ideologies of kinship, class, and romance. The emergent transnational connection
between international remittances, kinship, class, and gender makes this dissertation an
important contribution to contemporary cultural anthropology and our wider
understandings of migration, class, and relationships between kinship and neoliberal
capitalism.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction...1
Chapter 2: Your Happiness is Your Homeland...25
Chapter 3: Class and Courtship in a Culture of Migration...54
Chapter 4: Sang, Dëkkal, Dëkkoo...80
Chapter 5: Close Kin...114
Chapter 6: Technologies of Intimate Surveillance...138
Chapter 7: The European Reunion...168
Conclusion ...195
Appendix A...201
Appendix B...208
Works Cited...214
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