Challenging Patriarchy: Trade, outward migration and the internationalization of Commercial sex among Bayang and Ejagham women in Southwest Cameroon

• This paper documents the specific local and global social and economic forces that led to the outward migration ofBayang and Ejagham women to work as commercial sex workers on the Cameroon-Nigeria border regions in the1980s and 1990s. It demonstrates that these women’s personal accumulation strategies are adaptative- drawing ontime and space specific modes of capitalist accumulation and kinship systems of power. The intertwined nature ofthese forms of accumulation shows that patriarchal forms of power and capitalist forms of accumulation in thisregion were not competitive-but rather complementary systems. This conjuncture also gave women the latitude toclaim some form of sexual and economic agency, usefully suggesting that at least in Africa, patriarchy as a powerfield is dynamic and relational, simultaneously opening up spaces for both resistance and agency. Although theimpact of sex work has been disproportionate since most women were involved in subsistence sex and given the riskof violence and of contracting HIV/AIDS, they however reconfigured gender relations, but have not achievedliberation as most remain trapped in poverty.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Work (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Globaliseringsstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Globalisation Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

commercial sex; capitalist accumulation; patriarchy; power; agency; HIV/AIDS.

Vårdvetenskap

Caring Science

Health and Caring Sciences

Hälsovetenskap

Sociology

Sociologi

poverty

HIV/AIDS

sex work

women's empowerment

patriarchy

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)