Gender relations and female autonomy among Senegalese migrants in Spain: three cases from Tenerife

Abstract

The focus of this article is on Senegalese gender relations and female autonomy in Tenerife, Spain. I investigate women's autonomy in relation to women's social status as married or divorced, asking how the fact that they live with or without husband in Tenerife affects their work capacity, their decision-making and their economic achievements. I discuss female Senegalese migrants, and autonomy drawing upon three cases: one divorced woman, one married woman and her husband with their home in Tenerife, and one woman living in Tenerife with her husband in Dakar. For all Senegalese women, whether living in Senegal or Spain, marriage is a social obligation. Many Senegalese male migrants are discontented with the Senegalese female migrants’ relatively high degree of independence. Men's lack of control over women in Tenerife irritates them and causes tensions between male and female traders. Female autonomy thrives, particularly among those women living without men, but also to some extent among those women who are married in Tenerife to Senegalese men.

Keywords:

• female autonomy
• gender relations
• marriage
• divorce
• Senegal
• Spain

Notes

1. My research project in Senegal and Tenerife, Spain, on transnationalism, gender, and migration was financed by the Swedish International Development Agency's Research Foundation (SAREC) from 1998 to 2001.

2. Amber Stechman discusses the gendered ‘spending stererotypes’ which exist in Senegal, exemplified in a Senegalese TV show he saw while doing fieldwork in Diamaguène, Saint Louis in 2008. One of these themes consisted of the predominantly male belief that women will resort to all kinds of schemes to squeeze money out of men (Stechman 2009). Likewise, the stereotype suggests that women think men save their money for their own purposes, instead of paying the household expenses. The same ideas about the stinginess of the opposite sex can be found circulating in the diaspora as in Senegal.

3. Bruno Riccio, when writing about Senegalese immigrants in Italy, draws attention to the fact that Senegalese in Italy differ from Nigerians living there, in the sense that they are firmly rooted in what they identify as Senegalese identity, thinking that they just live for the present in Europe, with intent as to remain there for the rest of their lives (Riccio 2001).

4. Part of the sections on Tenerife and Playa de las Américas have been published elsewhere (Evers Rosander 2000, 2004).

5. My field data from the summers of 1998, 2000, and 2001, when I stayed in Playa de las Américas and Los Cristianos, were collected in collaboration with a Senegalese woman, Mrs Salimata Thiam, who worked as my assistant. At the time, she was student at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal.

6. According to Malick Ndiaye in his book Les Móodu Móodu ou l’éthos du developpement au Sénégal, this nickname was originally given by urban people to rural immigrants who came to town as petty traders in a very poor state. Later, ‘Móodu’ became a surname or a nickname for all those traders who shared the same social characteristics: eagerness to save money, religiosity, and a taste for commercial activities. They were hardworking and courageous people, with a capacity to adapt to troublesome situations (living far from home, admitting themselves only minimum means for consumption, willingness to do certain kinds of jobs which others would find beneath their dignity).