The power of agency : transformation of gender roles and marital relations among Nigerian immigrant women in Lethbridge, Alberta

This research explores the shifting subjectivities of eight Nigerian immigrant women as they negotiate gender roles and marital relations in Lethbridge. Using the Gendered Geographies of Power framework, this study uncovers a reflexive relationship between the social location of participants, and the type and degree of agency that they display as immigrant women, mothers, and wives, within geographies that include, the Canadian labour market, extended family networks in Nigeria, and nuclear households in Canada. Overall, findings show that by demonstrating agency, participants were able to appropriate social-cultural realities of migration and transnational living for the transformation of marital relations in ways that promoted gendered wellbeing and positioning within their marriages.

Authors

• Ilo, Semedeton
• University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science

• egalitarian society
• gender roles
• immigrants
• marital relations
• Nigerian women
• traditional society

Identifier

hdl:10133/3858

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.uleth.ca:10133/3858