Interdependence and Convergence: Migration, Men, Women, and Work in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1800–1975

This chapter examines migration of women and men in sub-Saharan Africa since 1800. It also analyzes how their forms of mobility related to each other, and how they were intertwined with work and social reproduction in different and complex ways. The premise of the chapter is that relationships between gender and migration (or non-migration) grow out of the internal dynamics of households and societies, just as they are also shaped by external influences and demands. The chapter focuses on several types of mobility directly related to social reproduction: the slave trades, slavery and the cultivation of early export crops, marriage, forced labour, military conscription, contract labour for infrastructure, large-scale cash crop production, mining, and urbanization. Keywords:marriage migration; migration of men; migration of women; military conscription; mining; slave trades; sub-Saharan Africa; urbanization