Exploring women’s mobilities and family transformations in Laos. Historical perspectives and mirrored ethnographic insights

Abstract

In Laos, mobility was mainly a male practice. Social codes traditionally assigned to women have limited their long-term movement away from their families. In recent decades, the feminization of migration has been observed and its social and societal impacts need to be examined. Female migration has changed intergenerational dynamics and has a profound effect on family structures and relationships. How does the change in the organization of work affect daily life and challenge the family model that dominated until the early 1990s? How does the growing increase in the mobility of some women in the workplace alter the roles traditionally assigned to women? Ethnographic data invite us to revisit kinship and gendered norms under the emergence of globalized economies and its localized social forms.

Keywords

• women
• mobility
• family
• social change
• Laos