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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Sending money or purchasing provisions? Senegalese migrants' attempts to negotiate a space for autonomy in long-distance family relations
Author:Blanchard, Melissa
Year:2014
Periodical:Journal des africanistes (ISSN 1957-7850)
Volume:84
Pages:40-59
Language:English
Geographic term:Senegal
Subjects:migrants
remittances
family
Abstract:Sending remittances is one of the strongest bonds tying together families dispersed by migration. For migrants supporting the family left behind is a moral duty, a sign of their social affiliation and the gauge of their belonging to a network of kinship and exchange. As time goes by, though, some of them perceive the demands of their original families as excessive. They have thus developed different strategies to come to terms with the problem of control over the use of remittances. Building on fieldwork in Dakar, the author considers an original case of reorganization of remittance sending, put in place through the establishment of a website offering migrants the opportunity to purchase at a distance provisions they want delivered to their families in Senegal. This case study highlights the tensions that surround the practices of support within families that live in transnational spaces and shows how migration can encourage migrants to reorganize such relations, renegotiating their obligations of solidarity. Bibliogr., notes, sum. in English and in French. [Journal abstract]
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