Development From the Margins? Mobile Technologies, Transnational Mobilities, and Livelihood Practices Among Ghanaian Women Traders

Kwami, Janet D.

doi:10.1111/cccr.12136

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Parents with children living apart from them use technology to keep in touch and care from a distance. Ghanaian migrant women in China, for instance, use mobile phones, laptops and mediums such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype and Zoom to carry on with their childcaring responsibilities and to avoid being accused of abandoning their motherly duties (Kwami, 2016). They remit to pay for their children's school fees, feeding, hospital bills and daily expenses among others.…”

Section: Gendered Dynamics Of Remittancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Dynamics in West African Migration

Setrana

Kleist

2022

IMISCOE Research Series

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Much of the discourse on West African migration ignores gender perspectives or tends to focus on women ‘as’ gender while men are portrayed as, perhaps unwittingly, neutral or un-gendered. On the contrary, both men and women migrate from their homes either permanently or temporarily with or without their families. These movements impact on the traditional family system of many countries within the region and the migrants themselves. The traditional notion of the male as a ‘bread winner’ and ‘mover’ has witnessed changes; remittances transferred by both males and female migrants are used to support and improve the wellbeing of households; gender division of labour and its associated roles are re-negotiated when females migrate independently; and some female migrants are abused and exploited at destination areas. The analysis in the chapter thus indicates that there are key gendered dynamics of the impacts of migration on migrants themselves and their households. Additionally, family relations are central in the gendered dynamics of remittances, migration aspirations, and return migration. In the process, masculinity and femininity ideals are negotiated and changed, even if patriarchal norms continue to affect notions of female migration in some settings.

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Section: Gendered Dynamics Of Remittancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Dynamics in West African Migration

Setrana

Kleist

2022

IMISCOE Research Series

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“…So, with this strategy, she is able to maximize the opportunity to make sales from both types of space – her shop and the street. This compares with Kwami's point in relation to the Ghanaian market context that ‘the margins constitute a multiplicity and continuum of spaces that is not static, with people situated in multiple intersections of the margins in different contexts, sometimes oscillating between centers and margins’ (Kwami 2016: 151).…”

Section: Ownership and Access To Shops Stalls And Open Spacesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Spatial politics and gendered strategies: women traders and institutions in Oke Arin market, Lagos

Nwankwo¹

2019

Africa

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Markets in Lagos, as in other parts of Yorubaland, are discursively constructed as spaces where women are in charge, perhaps based on their numbers. However, this article on the spatial relationships between women traders, the state and market institutions at Oke Arin in Lagos points to women's subordination and reflects Doreen Massey's concept of gendered spaces. Massey explains that spaces are in themselves gendered and that they also reflect and affect how gender is constructed and enforced in a specific context. The study is based on a sample of eighty Lagos (Yoruba) women traders and uses a combination of surveys, in-depth interviews, observation and secondary data to examine gendered strategies for survival and accumulation. I argue that, contrary to the perceptions of powerful Lagos market women, Massey's ‘internal structures of domination and subordination’ are evident in spatial governance, ownership and access at Oke Arin. Therefore, in response to spatial politics and the dominating structures of market and government authorities, women traders devise strategies of resistance, sometimes pushing the boundaries of legality to secure their livelihoods.

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“…For example, mobile phone ownership strengthens social ties that create access to jobs and business opportunities (Burrell and Oreglia 2015; Ilahiane 2011; Ilahiane and Sherry 2009; Rangaswamy and Nair 2010; Srinivasan and Burrell 2015). Similarly, mobile phones give voice to vulnerable populations, such as women (Doron 2012; Kwami 2016; Velghe 2014), migrant workers (Barber 2008; Horst and Taylor 2014; Peng and Choi 2013; Thompson 2009), and youth (Kumar 2014; Schoon 2014). While mobile phone adoption may also carry negative consequences, empowerment undoubtedly remains one of it hallmarks.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile Phone Visual Ethnography (MpVE): Bridging Transformative Photography and Mobile Phone Ethnography

DeBerry‐Spence¹,

Ekpo²,

Hogan³

2019

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing

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Mobile phone proliferation in developing economies has arguably affected the everyday lives of subsistence consumers and entrepreneurs like no other technology in recent times. This impact is evidenced by mobile phones' embeddedness in everyday consumption and business practices. Surprisingly, mobile phones have only minimally been incorporated into bottom-up research approaches in subsistence marketplaces and/or ethnographic transformative research methodologies and methods. To begin addressing this important gap, the authors conducted a systematic review of the literature on mobile phones and ethnography and then gained practical experience with a new bottom-up methodology called mobile phone visual ethnography (MpVE). Using research experiences as data, the authors share micro-level details about African microentrepreneurial everyday life and highlight important methodological issues associated with conducting MpVE in subsistence marketplaces. They find that MpVE affords methodological naturalism, unpacks informant perspectives of everyday life, captures human mobility within marketplaces, and begins to democratize the research process. In doing so, this article offers a new way of giving voice to subsistence marketplace populations through more active and visible participation in research.

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Development From the Margins? Mobile Technologies, Transnational Mobilities, and Livelihood Practices Among Ghanaian Women Traders

Cited by 12 publications

References 47 publications

Gendered Dynamics in West African Migration

Gendered Dynamics in West African Migration

Spatial politics and gendered strategies: women traders and institutions in Oke Arin market, Lagos

Mobile Phone Visual Ethnography (MpVE): Bridging Transformative Photography and Mobile Phone Ethnography

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