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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Prostitution or partnership? Wifestyles in Tanzanian artisanal gold-mining settlements
Authors:Bryceson, Deborah FahyISNI
Jønsson, Jesper BosseISNI
Verbrugge, Hannelore
Year:2013
Periodical:Journal of Modern African Studies (ISSN 0022-278X)
Volume:51
Issue:1
Pages:33-56
Language:English
Geographic term:Tanzania
Subjects:mining
cohabitation
sexuality
women
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/43302019
Abstract:Tanzania, along with several other African countries, is experiencing a national mining boom, which has prompted hundreds of thousands of men and women to migrate to mineral-rich locations. At these sites, relationships between the sexes defy the sexual norms of the surrounding countryside to embrace new relational amalgams of polygamy, monogamy and promiscuity. This article challenges the assumption that female prostitution is widespread. Using interview data with women migrants, the authors delineate six 'wifestyles', namely sexual-cum-conjugal relationships between men and women that vary in their degree of sexual and material commitment. In contrast to bridewealth payments, which involved elders formalizing marriages through negotiations over reproductive access to women, sexual negotiations and relations in mining settlements involve men and women making liaisons and cohabitation arrangements directly between each other without third-party intervention. Economic interdependence may evolve thereafter with the possibility of women, as well as men, offering material support to their sex partners. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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