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Flexibility in Domestic Organization and Seasonal Migration Among the Fulani of Northern Burkina Faso

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Kate Hampshire
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Abstract

Migration patterns among the Fulani of Burkina Faso have changed over recent decades from predominant transhumance, involving whole families, to seasonal rural-to-urban labour migration of young men. This article uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to examine the relationships between the new forms of migration and domestic organization. Specifically, it asks the following questions: (1) How do households accommodate the temporary loss of productive members? (2) Does the out-migration lead to new forms of domestic organization, and to changing roles and power relations within sending households? Various forms of flexibility in domestic organization are identified, which serve to maintain viable economic units in the face of the temporary absence of substantial numbers of young men. These include: flexibility in the processes of household division; rapid, temporary restructuring of domestic units; and drawing on extra-household support networks. One consequence of this flexibility is that intra-household gender divisions of labour and power have remained largely unchanged in the face of seasonal labour migration. The extent to which this will remain the case if migration becomes more widespread is uncertain.

Résumé

Les schémas de migration observés chez les Foulanis du Burkina Faso ont évolué au cours de ces dernières décennies, la transhumance autrefois prédominante, impliquant des familles entières, faisant place à une migration rurale-urbaine saisonnière de main-d'oeuvre masculine jeune. Cet article se sert de données quantitatives et qualitatives pour examiner les relations entre les nouvelles formes de migration et d'organisation domestique. Il pose en particulier les questions suivantes: (1) Comment les ménages s'accommodent-ils de la perte temporaire de membres productifs? (2) Cette émigration externe conduit-elle à de nouvelles formes d'organisation domestique et à une évolution des rôles et des rapports de force au sein des ménages de migrants? L'article identifie diverses formes de flexibilité dans l'organisation domestique destinées au maintien d'unités économiques viables en l'absence temporaire d'un nombre significatif d'hommes jeunes. Parmi ces formes figurent: la flexibilité dans les processus de division des tâches ménagères; la restructuration rapide et temporaire des unités domestiques; le recours aux réseaux de soutien extraménager. L'une des conséquences de cette flexibilité est le caractère largement inchangé de la division intraménagère des tâches et du pouvoir entre les sexes face à la migration de main-d'oeuvre saisonnière. On ne peut en revanche pas savoir s'il en restera de même, et dans quelle mesure, si la migration prend de l'ampleur.

Type
Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , August 2006 , pp. 402 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2006

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