Horizons of expectations and imaginings regarding life in the transnational marriages of Ethiopians in the Amhara Region

Bibliographic Data

ID21363763
AuthorsAschalew Abeje (0000-0002-3754-3610, Bahir Dar University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume76
Issue4
Pages228-241
Publication date2022-08-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNorsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-1951 • E-ISSN: 1502-5292
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00291951.2022.2108895
OpenAlexW4293250652
LanguageEN
References cited20

Transnational marriage involving urban women from the Amhara Region, Ethiopia, and migrant husbands from abroad has been common in the region since the 1990s. The purpose of the article is to analyse the causes behind the women’s marriage to migrant husbands. Triangulated data were collected through interviews, focus group discussions, observations, archive analysis, and questionnaires in Gondar Municipality and Bahir Dar Municipality, from which migrants husbands predominantly originate. The study approached multiple experiences as intersecting mechanisms and revealed transnational marriage as a multicausal process. The findings revealed broad effects, including how poverty was gendered and how gendered economy denied social prospect to induce women to enter into transnational marriage. As economic causes were considered, the phenomenon was not simply about poverty but about information concerning prospects abroad and the recognition of transnational marriage as a migration path without risky options. A further finding was that the ongoing patriarchal order and the pessimism of improved status of women were vital determinants of transnational marriages. The author concludes that given the fragile bargaining power of young women in the Amhara patriarchal setting, marriage to migrants also constitutes the agency and enactments of fathers

Geography · Political science · Sociology · African history and culture analysis · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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