After trafficking
Togolese girls' orientations to life in a West African city
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4769851 |
|---|---|
| Authors | L Buchbinder (0000-0003-1433-5103, University of California System, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 141-164 |
| Publication date | 2013-07-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cultural Dynamics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0921-3740 • E-ISSN: 1461-7048 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0921374013498134 |
| OpenAlex | W2032505012 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 13 |
This article offers an alternative explanation for why people "traffic" their children from Togo into Nigeria. Rather than explain parents' motivations for sending their children to work as domestic servants as an escape from poverty (per the human rights discourse) or a rite of passage into adulthood (as described by informants), I argue that it is rooted in a future-oriented strategy of survival in an age of economic decline. Instead of a means towards short-term profits, the practice delivers on a different imaginary of the future for post-Cold War Togolese, where the most common strategy for success is to leave the country. To track this shifting sensibility, this article presents the cultural styles of Togolese girls living in Lagos after they have been "trafficked" and categorizes them into two figures: the cosmopolitanist and the localist. These styles of living are emblematic of different orientations toward the future with respect to investments in city or "local" relations. Despite the terms "cosmopolitanist" and "localist," these types are not spatially bound, rather they reflect young migrants' refusal or commitment to the value constraints of rural society, as manifested in their choice of dress, companions, leisure activities, and so on
Charter · Political economy · Political science · Poverty · Sensibility · Sociology · The Imaginary · China's Global Influence and Migration · Gender Studies · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Psychology · Sex work and related issues
Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered
Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters
Anti-Trafficking Rhetoric and the Making of a Global Apartheid
Cosmopolitanism
Subaltern Cosmopolitanism as Politics
The space of vulnerability
Child Labor and Africanist Scholarship
Prophecy and the near future
On the Limits of Life Stages in Ethnography
Cosmopolis
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2023 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |