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Steblin-Kamensky N. Losing Boys, Seeing off Girls: “Victims” and “Heroes” of Ethiopian Labour Migration to the Persian Gulf

Nikolay Steblin-Kamensky
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0002-2040-530X
skni@kunstkamera.ru

 

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ABSTRACT. Since 1989, Ethiopians have increasingly migrated to the Middle East. This direction of migration reached its highest popularity in 2011, when tens of thousands of rural Ethiopians went for work to the Persian Gulf countries. The peculiarity of the labor legislation of the host countries has led to a clear separation of “male” and “female” migration. The article is an attempt to problematize the language of discussion of “male” and “female” migration from Ethiopia. It arose from the contradiction between my personal field work experience in Wollo region and reading scientific articles and reports on migration by various NGOs. By focusing on a sending community and covering both female and male experiences, it attempts to dispute two common assumptions in migration research. First, the idea that female migration (contrary to male migration) results from pressure and gender discrimination. Second, the tendency to victimize migrants of both sexes as being deceived and trafficked. I attempt to show, that victimization is problematic not only in the way it deals with human agency, which have been noted by many scholars, but also in its often obscured but inherent accusation of certain agents.

 

KEYWORDS: Labour migration, anthropology of migration, gender studies, victimization, Ethiopia

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2022-2(16)-166-177
УДК 325.1:39

 

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