1st Edition
Women, Gender, Remittances and Development in the Global South
This book endeavours to take the conceptualisation of the relationship between transnational remittance exchanges and gender to a new level. Thus, inevitably, it provides a number of case studies of relationships between gender and remittances from around the world, highlighting different processes and practises. Thereby the authors seek to understand the impact of remittances on gender and gender relations, both at the sending as well as at the receiving end. For each case study authors ask how remittances affect gender identities and relationships but also vice versa. By itself this already adds a wealth of insights to a field that is remarkably understudied despite a volume of studies on gender and the feminization of migration in developing contexts. Chapters take an open, explorative approach to the relationship between gender and remittance behaviour with the aid of case studies focusing on transnational flows between migrants and countries of origin. With the wide variety of cases this book is able to provide conceptual insights to better understand how remittances affect gender identity, roles and relations (at both the receiving and sending end) and give specific attention to the roles of various actors directly and indirectly involved in remittance sending in current collectively organized remittance schemes from around the world.
Biography
Ton van Naerssen is associate research fellow at the Nijmegen Centre of Border Research at Radboud University Nijmegen (RU). He was previously associate professor and co-ordinator of the master programme ’Globalisation and Development’ at the same university till 2008. Lothar Smith is a human geographer and works as assistant professor at the Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Tine Davids is lecturer at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies at the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She is involved in teaching and research on gender, politics, return migration and globalization. Marianne H. Marchand holds a chair in international relations at the Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico, where she currently directs the Canadian Studies Program.
"This is an important and ambitious collection of studies engaged in gendering the migration-development nexus debate through critical analysis of migrant women’s remittance practices. The authors elegantly bridge the boundaries and intersections between policy perspectives and academic debates and manage to move beyond certain fixities in both camps." - Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark
"Bringing gender into the migration and remittances debate often means to stress that women are better remitters. The book questions such gender myths. Its great value for practitioners and academics lies in its sensitivity to power relations as well as to local contexts. It is fascinating how gendered decision-making and identities are changing through remittances in even contradictory ways. Hence, there is no generic policy recipe." - Helen Schwenken, University of Osnabrück, Germany
“In sum, the volume offers an honest reflection on the significance of the topic, identifying specious assumptions and incomplete knowledge, and accepting that the very diversity of experiences and perspectives means that it is more important to establish fundamental principles to protect labour rights than to seek an approach that will fit all circumstances.” - Deborah Eade, Gender & Development, 24:2
