The Gendered Politics of Remittances in Ghanaian Transnational Families

Abstract

Using interviews with Ghanaian women in Toronto and members of their families in Ghana, this article extends the literature on remittances by drawing on insights from feminist scholarship on migration to investigate the social dynamics of remittances in transnational families. The growing literature on migration and remittances focuses on large-scale quantitative analyses of data on remittances. Less explored is how gender and kinship bonds (particularly, matrilineage affiliation) influence complex decision-making processes underlying remittances. I argue for a conceptualization of remittances as constituting relationships between senders and receivers that are continually being negotiated and contested in and across different places. Specifically, I focus on the cultural and gender-specific ways in which women and their families negotiate remittances, highlighting dilemmas that transnational families experience when they encounter contradictory aspects of remittances. Despite their material realities and struggles in Canada, the women in this study remitted to fulfill gendered obligations in highly contested and negotiated contexts. Their remittances were important, however, for the production and reproduction of families and households that are structured transnationally. While this case exhibits specific features that are particular to Ghanaian migration and transnationalism, it highlights how broader social dynamics underlying remittances operate at multiple scales and intersect with differential social and economic structures and agency in producing meanings of remittances.