Women and Migration

Acknowledgements 7

Women and migration: anthropological perspectives 9
Jacqueline Knörr & Barbara Meier


Part 1

Transformations of gender relations and
female identities in the context ofmigration

Mafa women and migration 21
Jos van Santen & Juliette Schaafsma

Female identities in a "globalized village":
a case study of South Lebanese migration to West Africa 63 Anja Peleikis

Female secret societies and their impact on ethnic and trans-ethnic identities among migrant women m Freetown, Sierra Leone 80 Jacqueline Knörr

Afro-Caribbean carnival as etbnic empowerment and migrant organization:
image building and women's changing role in contemporary carnival 99 Patricia Tamara Alleyne-Dettmers

Religious concepts in the process ofmigration:
Puerto Rican female spiritists in the United States 119
Bettina E. Schmidt





Part II

Female networks and decision-making strategies in migrant settings

Ethnic networks in women's migration: a comparative study of Jewish and Italian women in New York, 1870-1924 135 Kathie Friedman Kasaba

Men's migrant labor and its effects on gender relations in rural Zimbabwe 151
Rita Schäfer

"One day, we will retum home":
Turkana women migration and remigration 164
Ulrike Schultz

Migrant women's associations in Ghana:
the case of the female chief and female chain migration 181 Barbara Meier

"Pioneers in the Lake": female migrants in the
Lake Chad region of northeastern Nigeria
Editha Platte

African-Swiss women' s social networks 212
Claudia Roth & Chinwe Ifejika Speranza

Self-presentation in female migrants' biographies and narratives

Ingeborg Philipper
First generation Italian female migrants in Germany

Sandra Gruner-Domic
Strategic narratives: Latin American women as social actors of their biographies

Contributors