Journeys of patronage: moral economies of transactional sex, kinship, and female migration fromMozambique toEurope

Abstract

The article explores how young Mozambican women's migratory trajectories towards Europe are shaped by sexual relationships with older white men and obligations towards female kin. Triads of exchange between young women known as curtidoras (women enjoying life) and their partners and kin in Maputo are understood through theories of patronage and exchange moralities. Searching for respect, adventure, and consumption in the sexual economy, young women at the same time struggle to ensure their families' well‐being by redistributing the money they extract from white men. Sexual‐monetary transactions, love, and desire must be understood as part of broader moralities of exchange in which migration to Europe and sending of remittances is also a kinship project. The forms of patronage available in Maputo's sexual economy become stepping stones as well as obstacles to migration northwards.

Cultural consensus modeling to measure transactional sex in Swaziland: Scale building and validation

“…To identify emic CCMs we used UCINET software to perform a cultural consensus analysis on rating data (Borgatti S.P., 2002). Our initial eigenvalue ratio for the full sample was 1.37, with an average competence score of 0.31 suggesting that the 77 participants were drawing from more than one transactional sex CCM (Borgatti S.P., 2002; J.…”

“…While the act of receiving goods from a sexual partner does not pose health risks in itself, transactional relationships are likely to reflect strong gender and economic power imbalances, making it difficult for women to negotiate condom use or sexual encounters (Dunkle et al, 2004a). Transactional sex may also hurt or help a woman’s social standing, as these relationships exist within a network of social and financial obligations (Cole, 2004; Groes-Green, 2013, 2014; Stoebenau et al, 2013; Stoebenau et al, 2011; Swidler & Watkins, 2007; Wamoyi et al, 2011; Wamoyi et al, 2010). Peers or family may encourage women to charm their partners for more gifts and financial support, and those who receive nothing in exchange for sex can be mocked as “prostitutes” (Wamoyi et al, 2011, p.9) who have devalued themselves or failed to support their family (Groes-Green, 2013, 2014; Wamoyi et al, 2011).…”

“…Transactional sex may also hurt or help a woman’s social standing, as these relationships exist within a network of social and financial obligations (Cole, 2004; Groes-Green, 2013, 2014; Stoebenau et al, 2013; Stoebenau et al, 2011; Swidler & Watkins, 2007; Wamoyi et al, 2011; Wamoyi et al, 2010). Peers or family may encourage women to charm their partners for more gifts and financial support, and those who receive nothing in exchange for sex can be mocked as “prostitutes” (Wamoyi et al, 2011, p.9) who have devalued themselves or failed to support their family (Groes-Green, 2013, 2014; Wamoyi et al, 2011). Access to fashionable goods may improve social status, however being seen as promiscuous may result in being cutoff from material help in times of need (Kaschula, 2011; Masvawure, 2010; Strebel et al, 2013).…”

Money and Blood: Remittances as a Substance of Relatedness in Transnational Families in Nepal

“…Indeed, multiple studies have shown that migrants do not send money to all categories of kin but rather carefully choose who can be entrusted with remittances—a consideration often based on the strength of emotional ties, trust, the burden of obligation, as well as gender and kinship ideologies in question (Åkesson ; ; Groes‐Green ; Parreñas ). For instance, in the case of Cape Verdean (Åkesson ) and Mozambican migrants (Groes‐Green ), remittances flow with envious consistency to migrants’ parents and children, neglecting spouses or partners; Filipino female migrants open joint accounts with their daughters and give children, not their husbands, responsibility over the use of money (Parreñas ). These examples show that, rather than destroying human relationships, as the classical sociology of money would have it (Simmel ), the flow of money undermines some kinship ties but solidifies kinship relations that matter.…”

Gendered Migrations and Global Social Reproduction

“…Women may also move as independent migrants, often as care-workers or sex-workers, and then change to a dependant status through marriage so that the relationship between the different forms of work they perform is connected and dynamic (Kofman 2012;Lan 2008). They may shift from providing paid sex to clients in source countries to providing the same service as wives after marriage and migration (Groes-Green 2014).…”