Being Wives, Mothers and Sisters in the Absence of Men: Bargaining Power of Women Left behind on Oaxacan Rural Areas (Mexico)

This paper analyses how men’s international outmigration affects traditionally extended gender family dynamics in some indigenous areas of Oaxaca (Mexico). From the late 1980´s, not the individual but the family or the household has been considered the most appropriate decision making unit to understand how migration and development are linked. Since then, gender dynamics in rural sending areas have been mainly analyzed in terms of marriage transformations. However, other relevant family relations have not been widely studied. This paper highlights the importance of including mothers and sisters of migrated men to completely understand how traditionally gender norms and discourses, especially those related to inheritance and access to land, reproduce or change in rural Oaxaca.

The main argument of the paper is that son’s and brother’s migration along with other structural changes on sending societies has broken down the traditional system of protection based on son’s inheritance. It is also argued that mothers try to build new family alliances with their daughters to be cared in old age. In terms of marriage, the paper shows that changes in wives bargaining power must be seen within a cultural context to really understand if women did improved their situation, without establishing direct causality relations as women’s paid work greater bargaining power.

Two Oaxaca communities were selected following 5 criterions: rural areas, indigenous communities, high-medium index of poverty, and men´s migration to USA and finally usos y costumbres (ruled by indigenous customary law).  The methods used to carry out the investigation were long interviews, to measure shifts on gender discourses and the analysis of quantitative secondary database, to measure functions and capabilities.