Dorte Thorsen | University of Sussex (original) (raw)

Books by Dorte Thorsen

Child Migration in Africa explores the mobility of children without their parents within West Afr... more Child Migration in Africa explores the mobility of children without their parents within West Africa. Drawing on the experiences of children from rural Burkina Faso and Ghana, the book provides rich material on the circumstances of children's voluntary migration and their experiences of it. Their accounts challenge the normative ideals of what a 'good' childhood is, which often underlie public debates about children's migration, education and work in developing countries.

The comparative study of Burkina Faso and Ghana highlights that social networks operate in ways that can be both enabling and constraining for young migrants, as can cultural views on age- and gender-appropriate behaviour. The book questions easily made assumptions regarding children's experiences when migrating independently of their parents and contributes to analytical and cross-cultural understandings of childhood.

Papers by Dorte Thorsen

CABI eBooks, 2021

This chapter looks at young women's and men's strategies for mobility in rural ec... more This chapter looks at young women's and men's strategies for mobility in rural economies in Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire. It draws on livelihood, life history and photo-voice interviews, as well as focus group discussions, with young people across 16 sites in the four countries. The chapter focuses on spatial mobilities resulting from: involuntary relocations because of conflict in society and/or disruption within the family setting; relocations for education; and relocations for work. The analysis investigates in particular the gendered nature of youth mobilities and immobilities, and their implications for livelihood building.

Forum for development studies, 2009

Introduction This article focuses on the relocation of adolescent boys from rural areas to cities... more Introduction This article focuses on the relocation of adolescent boys from rural areas to cities within Burkina Faso and in neighbouring C6te d'Ivoire. These are boys who in some policy and child rights litera-ture are treated as children exposed to traffickers, slave labour in cocoa ...

Un effort politique considérable a été fait pour tendre à l'élimination du travail des enfan... more Un effort politique considérable a été fait pour tendre à l'élimination du travail des enfants et l'attention se concentre actuellement sur la question de la création d'emploi pour les jeunes. La plupart des solutions proposées partent du principe que l'éducation est une ...

Bristol University Press eBooks, Apr 28, 2023

Journal of Asian and African Studies

This paper draws on a feminist poststructural perspective to examine gendered dimensions of sendi... more This paper draws on a feminist poststructural perspective to examine gendered dimensions of sending and managing international migrant remittances in a patriarchal community in Ghana. It relies on primary data collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and observation in Nkoranza, a Ghanaian community with a long history of international migration and receipt of remittances, to analyze the fluidity of gendered and intergenerational power relationships associated with managing remittances. The findings show that males and females perform different roles as remitters and managers of remittances. While the patterns of sending and receiving remittances tend to conform to gender norms, which construct men as providers and women as carers, these subject positions are fluid. Although men are generally reluctant to perform traditional female roles even when their wives migrate, gendered and intergenerational power relations are being negotiated through the sending and m...

Children’s independent migration in the Global South has been linked with trafficking and harmful... more Children’s independent migration in the Global South has been linked with trafficking and harmful work since the millennium, prompting advocacy and development interventions concerning child protection. Without dismissing occurrences of exploitation and malpractice, this chapter debunks some of the misconceptions surrounding adolescents’ labour migration. Drawing on qualitative studies in West Africa, the chapter provides evidence of how articulations of kinship and relatedness create opportunities to migrate and find work for rural adolescents, while also curbing their space to make independent decisions. Ideas about age and gender appropriate work and needs for protection underpin the constraints that boys and girls experience, respectively. However, the empirical material reveals that the permanence and depth of constraints depend on the socio-political constitution of the local labour market and on adolescents’ ability to navigate trans-local social relations. Through migration ...

Youth and the rural economy in Africa: hard work and hazard, 2021

This introductory chapter first situates the current interest in Africa's rural youth, and th... more This introductory chapter first situates the current interest in Africa's rural youth, and the place of this book, within the broader discussion of policy narratives. It then identifies seven narratives about rural youth in sub-Saharan Africa that channel much contemporary policy and development intervention. Following this the argument that runs through the book is outlined. The key conceptual resources that the various chapters draw upon are briefly introduced in the next section. The last section provides a brief summary of each of the subsequent chapters.

Bristol University Press eBooks, Apr 28, 2023

This PDF is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 I... more This PDF is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Licence. Further details regarding permitted usage can be found at http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Print and ebook editions of this work are available to purchase from Zed Books (www.zedbooks.co.uk). A frica Now Africa Now is an exciting new series, published by Zed Books in association with the internationally respected Nordic Africa Institute. Featuring high-quality, cutting-edge research from leading academics, the series addresses the big issues confronting Africa today. Accessible but in-depth, and wide-ranging in its scope, Africa Now engages with the critical political, economic, socio logical and development debates affecting the continent, shedding new light on pressing concerns. Nordic Africa Institute The Nordic Africa Institute (Nordiska Afrikainstitutet) is a centre for research, documentation and information on modern Africa. Based in Uppsala, Sweden, the Institute is dedicated to providing timely, crit ical and alternative research and analysis of Africa and to cooperating with African researchers. As a hub and a meeting place for a growing field of research and analysis, the Institute strives to put knowledge of African issues within reach for scholars, policy-makers, politicians, the media, students and the general public. The Institute is financed jointly by the Nordic countries

Development and Change, 2002

This article addresses the intra-household division of responsibilities among the Bisa and Mossi ... more This article addresses the intra-household division of responsibilities among the Bisa and Mossi in southeastern Burkina Faso. Based on a detailed village study of the land use which revealed that women cultivated 31 per cent of all the land in 1997, gendered practices in household budgeting are investigated. Although the proportion of women's own-account agriculture suggests that they contribute substantially to household consumption, the majority of women maintain that they only help their husbands when contributing in areas that, ideologically, are his responsibility, for example by providing food and by paying school fees and materials. In this way, women keep within the norms of showing respect for the husband but, at the same time, they may press him to fulfil his obligations.

CMS, Mar 1, 2018

The Centre for Migration Studies is located at the University of Ghana to undertake research, tea... more The Centre for Migration Studies is located at the University of Ghana to undertake research, teaching, training, capacity building, policy assessment, development and dissemination in the area of migration. The Centre for Migration Studies is the first such Centre in the West African sub-region and is seeking to be a regional leader in learning, teaching, research and capacity building through short-term training programmes in specific areas. Students at CMS enrol in Master of Arts, Master of Philosophy, PhD and Sandwich programmes in Migration Studies.

Migrating out of Poverty, Mar 1, 2017

Main messages • Households are the places where the effects of migration are felt, and they are t... more Main messages • Households are the places where the effects of migration are felt, and they are the sites prompting men and women to migrate • Differing norms in Bangladesh, Ghana and Indonesia regulate women's access to internal and transnational migration • Each of the studies challenge the common assumption that men are providers and women are care-givers • The gendered effects of migration expand way beyond consideration of the sex of the person who travels • Norms sketching men and women's social positions and responsibilities are negotiated through migration, gradually beginning to unsettle inequalities in marital relationships. • When women experience having more voice, choice and control as migrants and as remittance managers, they try to avoid returning to their former subordinate position

Ce document traite des enfants travaillant dans l'agriculture commerciale, qu'ils travail... more Ce document traite des enfants travaillant dans l'agriculture commerciale, qu'ils travaillent pour leur famille sans etre remuneres ou qu'ils soient travailleurs remuneres, a mi-temps ou a plein temps. Deux perspectives differentes viennent informer la recherche et l'elaboration des politiques sur le travail des enfants dans l’agriculture commerciale. L'une repose sur la traite des personnes et les nouvelles formes d'esclavage, la seconde perspective est centree sur l'enfant et se concentre sur le travail des enfants dans les exploitations familiales, le travail reellement effectue par des enfants d'âges differents, les migrations des enfants pour des raisons professionnelles et l'importance des reseaux sociaux, et le point de vue des enfants sur le travail dans l'agriculture commerciale. Nous nous interessons au travail accompli par les garcons et les filles, les jeunes enfants, les enfants plus âges, ainsi qu'aux aspirations qui incitent...

Les migrations de travail pendant les grandes vacances scolaires sont de plus en plus frequentes ... more Les migrations de travail pendant les grandes vacances scolaires sont de plus en plus frequentes en Afrique de l’Ouest a mesure que la scolarisation et le maintien a l’ecole s’etendent aux zones rurales et incluent les enfants des familles les plus pauvres, filles et garcons.

Ce document d'information traite des garcons et des filles qui travaillent dans l'economi... more Ce document d'information traite des garcons et des filles qui travaillent dans l'economie urbaine informelle1, certains d'entre eux ayant grandi en ville, d'autres venant des regions rurales a la recherche d'un travail et d'une education. Les activites du secteur de l'economie informelle sont souvent considerees comme du travail independant ou de petites entreprises qui ont recours au travail familial non remunere, ou comme des activites illegales. Cependant, les flux de capitaux allant de l'emploi formel aux activites informelles a donne lieu a une stratification chez les personnes operant dans l'economie urbaine informelle et a l'emergence du travail occasionnel et du travail remunere. Les enfants prennent part a un large eventail d'activites, principalement dans les secteurs que sont le commerce, les services, l'artisanat et les divertissements. L'analyse se penche sur les pratiques de recrutement, les possibilites de developpe...

CABI eBooks, 2021

Forum for development studies, 2009

Bristol University Press eBooks, Apr 28, 2023

Journal of Asian and African Studies

Youth and the rural economy in Africa: hard work and hazard, 2021

Bristol University Press eBooks, Apr 28, 2023

Development and Change, 2002

CMS, Mar 1, 2018

Migrating out of Poverty, Mar 1, 2017

Within the past few decades, the role of migration in influencing development has garnered very i... more Within the past few decades, the role of migration in influencing development has garnered very interesting public debate at the local, national, regional and international level. This has been particularly apparent in Ghana due to the timely and significant nature of remittances in the socioeconomic development of the country. In recent times, attention has focused on remittances as a potential source of development finance given changes in the level and composition of official development assistance received by Ghana as it graduates to lower middle-income status. While migration is a common strategy adopted by individuals and households to move out of poverty and improve living standards, the actual welfare impacts of this phenomenon have been a source of debate within the policy environment, governments, and among researchers. The movement of people has been implicitly assumed to have positive impacts on living standards, in that potential migrants are described as weighing up the costs and benefits of migration, measured by expected costs and earnings, and the migration decision is only triggered if the expected benefits outweigh the costs, where these costs and benefits are not restricted to financial forms. Our study will examine both economic and social outcomes of migration on both the migrant and the entire household.