Juggling with Moving Sexual Norms: Senegalese Women’s Attempts to Make Their Way Through Migration Cover Image

Juggling with Moving Sexual Norms: Senegalese Women’s Attempts to Make Their Way Through Migration
Juggling with Moving Sexual Norms: Senegalese Women’s Attempts to Make Their Way Through Migration

Author(s): Melissa Blanchard
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Migration Studies, Social Norms / Social Control
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Senegalese migrants; women; sexual behaviour; social control; Marseille;

Summary/Abstract: Women’s sexual behaviour is the mirror of larger social dynamics that cross-cut migration and the crux where individual agency and social constraints come face to face. This article examines how, among Senegalese migrants in Marseille, the representations of feminine sexual conduct have varied over time, reflecting changes in the community’s social composition and in the religious layout of the city. On the other hand, it shows that women’s representations of marital and non-marital sex vary enormously according to their education, caste, geographic origin and age, influencing the different ways they juggle with changing social norms in order to make their way through migration.

  • Issue Year: 16/2019
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 481-490
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: English