Rethinking family relations through the allocation of emigration’s resources: Senegalese migrants’ use of e-commerce

Abstract

This paper focuses on a website which allows Senegalese migrants to purchase at a distance provisions they want delivered in Senegal, in order to overcome the problem of control over remittances’ use. It shows how new economic practices may carry new social meanings, in this case a shift in the conception of obligations and roles within the family. Whether it is their exposure to diverse ways of living that leads migrants to rethink their family relations, or whether migration just accelerates the consolidation of ideas that already exist in the home country, has yet to be determined.