Ethiopian Migrant Domestic Workers

Migrant Agency and Social Change

Bina Fernandez
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MOBILITY & POLITICS
SERIES EDITORS: MARTIN GEIGER
PARVATI RAGHURAM · WILLIAM WALTERS

Ethiopian Migrant
Domestic Workers
Migrant Agency and Social Change

Bina Fernandez
Mobility & Politics

Series Editors
Martin Geiger
Carleton University
Ottawa, Canada

Parvati Raghuram
Open University
Milton Keynes, UK

William Walters
Carleton University
Ottawa, Canada
Mobility & Politics
Series Editors: Martin Geiger, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada;
Parvati Raghuram, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK; William Walters,
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Global Advisory Board: Michael Collyer, University of Sussex; Susan

B. Coutin, University of California; Raúl Delgado Wise, Universidad
Autónoma de Zacatecas; Nicholas De Genova, King’s College London;
Eleonore Kofman, Middlesex University; Rey Koslowski, University at
Albany; Loren B. Landau, University of the Witwatersrand; Sandro
Mezzadra, Università di Bologna; Alison Mountz, Wilfrid Laurier
University; Brett Neilson, University of Western Sydney; Antoine Pécoud,
Université Paris 13; Ranabir Samaddar, Mahanirban Research Group
Calcutta; Nandita Sharma, University of Hawai’i at Manoa; Tesfaye
Tafesse, Addis Ababa University; Thanh-Dam Truong, Erasmus University
Rotterdam.

Human mobility, whatever its scale, is often controversial. Hence it carries

with it the potential for politics. A core feature of mobility politics is the
tension between the desire to maximise the social and economic benefits
of migration and pressures to restrict movement. Transnational communi-
ties, global instability, advances in transportation and communication, and
concepts of ‘smart borders’ and ‘migration management’ are just a few of
the phenomena transforming the landscape of migration today. The ten-
sion between openness and restriction raises important questions about
how different types of policy and politics come to life and influence
mobility.

Mobility & Politics invites original, theoretically and empirically informed

studies for academic and policy-oriented debates. Authors examine issues
such as refugees and displacement, migration and citizenship, security and
cross-border movements, (post-)colonialism and mobility, and transna-
tional movements and cosmopolitics.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14800
 Bina Fernandez

Ethiopian Migrant
Domestic Workers
Migrant Agency and Social Change
Bina Fernandez
University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC, Australia

Mobility & Politics

ISBN 978-3-030-24054-7    ISBN 978-3-030-24055-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24055-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
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This book is dedicated to the women of Mesewat, in honour of their strength,
perseverance, courage, and deep care for Ethiopian migrant women.
 Acknowledgements

My deepest gratitude is to the women of Mesewat who were truly inspira-

tional in their activism, and whose warmth and friendship enriched my
experience of Lebanon. I thank them, and all the other Ethiopian migrant
women and their family members who shared their stories with me.
I thank Catherine Dom and Alula Pankhurst of the WIDE Research
team for their support in accessing two of the WIDE research sites in
Ethiopia. Catherine Dom, Marina de Regt, Misrak Kifle, two anonymous
reviewers and the series editor provided insightful comments on the first
draft of the book, which have been invaluable.
I am grateful too, for the excellent research assistance at the different
stages and locations of this project, which was provided by Rahel Tsegaye,
Hana Husn, Serawit Omer, and Isabella Ofner. Paul Scade provided mas-
terful proof-reading and editing support in the final stages.
Finally, this research was made possible by funding provided by a British
Academy Small Grant in 2010 while I was at the University of Leeds; by
the Special Studies Program funding from the University of Melbourne in
2014; and by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career
Researcher Award (DE150100443) between 2015 and 2017.

vii
 Acronyms

EPRDP Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Party

MoLSA Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs
PEA Private Employment Agency

ix
 Contents

1 The Will to Change  1

2 ‘We Are Like Oil to Our Government’ 25

3 (De)Constructing Docility at the Destinations 53

4 ‘We Ethiopians Are More Sociable People: We Cannot Live

Alone’ 79

5 ‘Now We Welcome the Birth of Daughters’103

6 On the ‘Cutting Edge of Change’129

Glossary147

Index149

xi
 CHAPTER 1

The Will to Change

Abstract This chapter introduces the ‘will to change’ of the Ethiopian

women who migrate to the Middle East in large numbers each year, to take
up jobs as migrant domestic workers. Their primary aim is to change their
own lives and those of their families. This chapter describes the aspirations
that contribute to the women’s decisions to work abroad and then goes on
to lay out a theoretical framework for understanding their agency, drawing
from migration studies and feminist scholarship. The chapter argues that we
should move beyond the dominant depictions in media and policy discourses
of migrant women as victims of abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. Instead,
I outline how this book proposes to interpret the actions and inactions, the
words and silences, of these women as multiple dimensions of their agency,
even though such agency may often be heavily constrained by their employ-
ment circumstances. Further, I use the concept of social reproduction to
understand the transformations their migration brings about in their own
lives, the lives of their families, and at a broader level of social change.

Keywords Ethiopian • Migrant domestic worker • Agency • Social

reproduction • Social change

When asked why they want to migrate to work in the Middle East, the
commonest response given by young Ethiopian women is, ‘To change my
life for the better’ and/or ‘To change my family’s lives for the better.’ The

© The Author(s) 2020 1

B. Fernandez, Ethiopian Migrant Domestic Workers, Mobility & Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24055-4_1
2 B. FERNANDEZ

compelling force of this ‘will to change’ is evident in the continuing flow

of women to the Middle East. These women remain largely undeterred by
the now widespread knowledge of the dangers and difficulties involved in
migration, and of the high potential risk of abuse and exploitation. Even
the temporary legal bans on migration periodically proclaimed by the
Ethiopian government have not stemmed the flows. Many migrants per-
sist in their chosen course, opting for irregular, often more expensive and
dangerous, routes, when regular routes are closed. Although reliable data
on Ethiopian migration is difficult to obtain, conservative estimates of its
scale suggest that over half a million Ethiopian women are currently
migrant workers in the Middle East (Kuschminder et al. 2012: 33), and at
least as many are returnee migrants.
The migration of Ethiopian women to undertake contract domestic
work in the Middle East began in the late 1990s, after the fall of the Derg
regime and the liberalisation of emigration controls in the country. The
majority of women travel as documented migrants, employed on contracts
as live-in domestic workers. Lebanon was the initial and primary destina-
tion for nearly all migrant women from Ethiopia until the early 2000s.
However, in 2008, the Ethiopian government officially banned migration
to Lebanon due to the high levels of abuse and deaths suffered by
Ethiopian women there. By 2008–2009, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had
emerged as the new preferred destinations, followed by Dubai, Qatar,
Yemen, and Oman.
Women migrate to the Middle East from a number of countries to find
domestic work. Those who come from the Philippines, Sri Lanka,
Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Nepal tend to be married women with chil-
dren. The typical Ethiopian migrant woman, by contrast, is unmarried and
slightly younger, normally aged between 18 and 30. Unpublished data
from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA) in Ethiopia
shows that, in 2009, 91% of the documented migrant women were single,
83% were aged 20–30, and over 60% had completed secondary education.
Almost all these women were employed as domestic workers or nannies on
short-term contracts for 2–3 years, and over 90% of them earned
US$100–150 per month. The migration trajectory of documented
migrant women workers is often circular: many women complete one
employment contract, return to Ethiopia for a break, and then take up
another contract, sometimes in a different country. Women who are
undocumented workers often find it difficult to exit the country.
 1 THE WILL TO CHANGE 3

While a sophisticated body of scholarship has analysed the phenome-

non of increasing flows of migrant domestic workers in the current glo-
balised economy, this literature has tended to focus on the experiences of
migrants from South America, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka (Anderson
2000; Constable 2007; Gamburd 2000; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001;
Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2003; Hochschild 2001; Parrenas 2001;
Moukarbel 2009; Liebelt 2011; Briones 2009). The present book departs
from this geographical trend and offers an analysis of the largest stream of
autonomous migration by African women to countries outside the conti-
nent. The migration of Ethiopian women between Africa and the Middle
East has only recently begun to be documented (Fernandez 2010, 2011,
2013; de Regt 2010; Jamie and Tsega 2016; Kuschminder 2016; Atnafu
and Adamek 2016), and is relatively undertheorised. This book aims to
provide an empirically grounded analysis of the gendered dimensions of
agency and social reproduction within this migration trajectory.
Dominant media, policy, and academic discourses tend to explain the
continued momentum of Ethiopian women’s migration by reference
either to ‘cultures of migration’1 (RMMS 2014) or to the ‘trafficking’ of
women into working conditions that are akin to slavery (Beydoun 2006;
Endeshaw et al. 2006; Minaye 2012; Kubai 2016; Atnafu and Adamek
2016). However, such explanations are simplistic and offer insufficient
analytical insight into a complex socio-cultural phenomenon. This book
aims to offer a richer analysis, based instead on the notion of the ‘will to
change’ that is expressed by many Ethiopian migrant women. I examine
how women’s agency is constructed in this desire for change and offer a
closer consideration of the often contradictory social meanings attributed
to their actions, practices, and choices. I identify the ways in which the
exercise of agency by these women is contingent on the location-specific
identity markers of gender, race, nationality, class, age, ethnicity, and reli-
gion. The book also interrogates the multiple, complex registers within
which ‘change’ occurs: at the level of the individual self, the family, and
the community in Ethiopia; and within the context of migrant domestic
work in countries of the Middle East (with a specific empirical focus
on Lebanon).
In focussing on Ethiopian women, I build on the rich genre of analysis
of migrant domestic workers and ‘global care chains’ that examines how
migrant women from countries in the Global South undertake care work
at destination countries primarily in order to provide support for their
4 B. FERNANDEZ

marital families (Hochschild 2001; Parrenas 2001). I extend these

­analyses to the experiences of the predominantly unmarried Ethiopian
migrant women who work to support the welfare of their natal families.
The book argues that the labour of these young women has important
implications not only for the depletion of individual women’s resources
but also for the social reproduction of families and communities in
Ethiopia. In doing so, I also build on the work of scholars of migration
and social reproduction (Truong 1996; Kofman and Raghuram 2015) to
enable us to better appreciate the women’s labour in relation to a concep-
tualisation of social reproduction that is spatially extended across
national borders.
The aim of the book is, then, to analyse the diversity of migrant wom-
en’s experiences and to add breadth and depth to the extant literature on
migrant domestic workers in the Middle East. This introductory chapter
lays the groundwork for this study. First, I provide a profile of Ethiopian
migrant domestic workers and introduce their aspirations for change. I
then go on to draw on migration and feminist studies to briefly outline the
conceptualisations of agency and social reproduction that I deploy in my
analysis. Finally, I discuss the methodologies and the scope of the research
that has informed this book, and provide an outline of the chapter
structure.

Aspirations for Change

The aspirations and motivations of the young Ethiopian women who
migrate to the Middle East for work are multi-layered. The two dominant,
and often intertwined, aspirations are the desires to ‘change my life’ and
to ‘change my family’s life.’ As Munira,2 a young Muslim returnee migrant
in Hayk,3 puts it:

My parents were very poor, so my first priority was just to change their lives.
I never even thought about myself at that time. I gave priority to my father
and my mother. My plan was to give them a good life. I wished to have
something for myself, but my first priority was to give my parents a good life.

Similar aspirations to help parents and siblings are echoed by many young
Ethiopian migrant women, even if for some it is merely a ‘socially accept-
able’ answer. A common profile of an Ethiopian migrant woman is the
eldest daughter from a low-income family, who has migrated to support
 1 THE WILL TO CHANGE 5

her parent/s and dependent younger siblings. These young women

­frequently come from a single-parent family or have ailing and/or unem-
ployed parents. They often cite the incapacity of their parents to support
the family as one of their motivations for seeking work abroad.
Migration was a survival strategy for the single-parent household of
Genet, a returnee migrant in Oda Dawata.4 Genet’s mother Alem was a
divorcee responsible for bringing up five children. In interviews with
Genet and Alem, I learnt how the family’s economic situation had deterio-
rated when Alem fell seriously ill. Genet dropped out of school and
migrated to work in Dubai to help the family survive difficult times, as her
mother recounted:

Yes, I was sick and I couldn’t do anything, my kids skipped school and they
were helping me for eight months. When she [Genet] was in grade ten she
said to me that she didn’t want to study anymore and wanted to start work-
ing. She was so mature and smart. I planted some crops and earned 3,000
Birr, and I also borrowed from my relatives and sent her to Saudi Arabia.

The earnings Genet sent back over four years enabled Alem to pay back
the loan, buy additional land and livestock, and consolidate the income
streams from her livelihoods. This improved economic security ensured
that her remaining children could continue their education. While both
mother and daughter were satisfied with the stabilisation of the family’s
economic situation, Genet observed that: ‘I didn’t change myself, but I
have helped my family … My focus was my mother, but from here on I
will work for myself.’ Genet was planning to return to work for the same
family in Dubai and was also taking her 19-year-old younger sister along
to work for a relative of her employers. This time, however, Genet’s aspira-
tion was to save her salary to build a house for herself on land her mother
promised to give her.
Similarly, Mekdes, a 28-year-old returnee migrant I interviewed in
Addis Ababa, had migrated to work in Bahrain because her parents were
unable to support her family. Her mother was ill with asthma and her
father had become unemployed 15 years earlier when the German non-­
governmental organisation (NGO) for whom he made handicraft prod-
ucts closed down. As the eldest daughter, Mekdes felt compelled to quit
school so she could work to meet her parents’ daily needs and help her
siblings finish their education.
6 B. FERNANDEZ

Like Mekdes and Genet, the majority of women I interviewed had not
completed their secondary education, although almost all of them had
completed at least primary education. Several of the women had dropped
out of school in grade 8 or 9, or failed the national examination in grade
10. As we will see in Chap. 2, this pattern fits a general trend and is a con-
sequence of educational reforms in the country. Tesfaye, a farmer in
Kormargeffia,5 said that his daughter went to Saudi Arabia despite the
family’s opposition because ‘she failed grade eight twice and also grade
nine; she became so angry. Her brother told her that he will pay for her
schooling if she wanted to learn, but she refused, and she went.’ While
Tesfaye was opposed to sending his daughter, Jemal, a farmer in Oda
Dawata, thought it was a pragmatic alternative for his child: ‘She didn’t
get a good result in grade ten so I sent her.’
The frustration of women who failed at the secondary education level
is linked to the absence of jobs, particularly in rural areas. The women feel
that if even those who complete their secondary education find it difficult
to get jobs, then their own options are even more limited. This becomes a
compelling motivation to migrate. As Zewditu observed: ‘If I had money
I would prefer working in my own country… In Ethiopia there are too
many problems, there are no jobs, and we get paid badly.’
As recent research on adolescent girls has documented, for some young
women from rural areas, migration abroad begins with migration to Addis
Ababa, where they find work as live-in domestic workers, construction
workers, or sex workers (Grabska et al. 2019). Hanna from Kormargeffia
migrated to Addis Ababa when she was 17 and found employment as a
live-in domestic worker with an employer who treated her well. However,
her monthly salary, after accommodation and food, was only 60 Birr.6 She
worked for four years and then found out about a local Private Employment
Agency for migrant domestic workers: ‘I begged my employer to send me,
saying that my family is poor, so I have to help them. And I told them I
will pay them when I come back, so they sent me.’ Her employer lent her
6000 Birr to process her papers, which she later repaid.
Although more jobs are available for young women in urban areas,
these are usually in the informal sector. However, even in ‘office jobs,’
salaries are usually lower than what women can earn abroad. Mahbuba, a
returnee migrant from Hayk, recounted that, prior to migrating, she
worked as a secretary in the local municipal government office, but she
was paid a net salary after tax of just 900 Birr. This low salary was why she
 1 THE WILL TO CHANGE 7

decided to leave her husband and 18-month-old son behind to become a

domestic worker in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

At that time it was very difficult and that is why I decided to go. I was plan-
ning to work for 2–3 years. The payment you earn per day when you work
in a government office [in Ethiopia] is much lower than the profit petty
traders make. In my opinion, the advantage of working in an office is the
fact that you clean up and dress well on a daily basis while going to work,
but I realized that the petty traders selling tomatoes and onions are much
better off than us in terms of building up assets.

Her migration goal was very specific: ‘My plan was to go there and work
and come back with enough money to start my own business and become
a business woman.’
The number of married Ethiopian women migrants is increasing, and
their primary aspiration is to support the education and welfare of their
own children. For some, migration is necessary to provide for their chil-
dren’s basic needs and survival, while for others the goal of migration is to
facilitate a higher standard of living for their children. Eman, a returnee
migrant from Oda Dawata, said: ‘My first plan was to get out of a rented
house, and support my children.’ Her goal was to ensure that her children
did not go hungry and could go to school. By contrast, Meseret, a single
mother I interviewed in Lebanon, wanted to provide better quality educa-
tion and a higher standard of living for her two children in Addis Ababa,
who were being brought up by her mother:

It is hard to educate two children. He [the children’s father] stopped pro-

viding any help. Yesterday I know I helped my [natal] family, and now they
say “just look after yourself.” I could raise my children while working in my
own country but the reason I migrated is to provide them with better
clothes, because nowadays people pay attention to clothes. As children they
need to dress well and fashionably. They have to study in good private
schools. Public schools have a lower quality of education as there are
many children.

The desire for change is often stimulated by the demonstration effect of

visible changes in the lifestyle and consumption patterns of neighbours
and relatives. Saeda, a 33-year-old Muslim woman from Hayk, puts
it this way:
8 B. FERNANDEZ

I went with the hope to change my home, to raise my children, to change

my life. As we can see, our town is changing. We see TVs, we see nice furni-
ture, so we said we had to go, work, and change our lives. In our town there
were only a few TVs; I have a small child and he was running there to watch
TV. Thanks be to God, I have bought my own now.

For a few women, the desire for change stemmed from the need to escape
restrictive gender norms, particularly early marriage. For others, it was
motivated by restlessness, a desire to travel and see the world, and an urge
to experience something different. I met Habiba, a young Muslim woman,
at the MoLSA office in Addis Ababa where she was processing her papers
to migrate on a contract:

I worked with my family [in their business] for five years, but now I got
bored. By the way, my family doesn’t want me to go, they are willing to
open a shop for me rather than let me go. But all I want is to stay there for
two years.

We see in these narratives that a woman’s decision to migrate for work

is usually made in consultation with their families (parents or partners) but
not always with their consent. As research on adolescent girls’ migration
has shown, young Ethiopian women often migrate (initially within the
country, as a first step to international migration) to earn a living, to escape
abusive relationships in their families, or to avoid forced and early mar-
riages (Erulkar et al. 2006; Grabska et al. 2019). The strength of the
woman’s aspirations to change her life is the initial driver for her actions
and is a core component for understanding other dimensions of her agency
as a migrant worker.

Conceptualising Migrant Women’s Agency

Aspiration, desire, intention, motivation, free will, action, resistance, and
choice are a set of words often used to describe purposive aspects of
agency. Agency is additionally associated with a constellation of other
terms, including preferences, autonomy, independence, subjectivity,
capacity, initiative, routine practices, creativity, and judgement. The prolif-
eration of definitions, associations, and interpretations has led the
Comaroffs to observe that agency is a concept that is ‘greatly underspeci-
fied, often misused, much fetishized these days by social scientists’
 1 THE WILL TO CHANGE 9

(Comaroff and Comaroff 1997: 37). The continuing pre-occupation with

agency in the social sciences is indicative of the power of a deceptively
simple underlying question: how do human beings bring about social
change? Or re-phrased for this book: how do Ethiopian migrant women
bring about change, in their lives and in the lives of their families?
Many understandings of agency converge on some variation of the idea
of agency as the exercise of free will or the ability to act freely (Ahearn
2001: 115, 116). However, the challenge is to achieve a balance between
recognising the capacity of people to take action in order to achieve their
desires and create social change, while also acknowledging the ways in
which social structures shape and constrain these capacities. That is, agency
cannot simply be presumed to be the exercise of ‘free will’ by a rational
individual actor making choices—the capacity to choose is not ontologi-
cally prior to social structures but, rather, emerges from them. To be an
agent, then, is to be capable of exerting some degree of control over the
social relations and structures in which one is enmeshed. This in turn
implies the possibility of the transformation of these social relations and
structures to some degree (Sewell 1992: 20). There is a vigorous ongoing
debate about the relationship between ‘agency and structure’ that cannot
be surveyed here. Rather, I identify a curated set of conceptual resources,
drawn from migration studies and feminist scholarship, which serve to
illuminate my analysis of dimensions of Ethiopian migrant women’s agency.
Within migration studies, the ‘turn to agency’ in the past decade is
partly due to scholars attempting to challenge dominant media and policy
perspectives on migrants at a time when international migration has
become a deeply contentious political issue (Anderson 2008; Anderson
and Ruhs 2010; Andrijasevic 2010; Mainwaring 2016; Strange et al.
2017). These dominant perspectives often implicitly or explicitly assume a
dualistic and gendered active/passive binary in the conceptualisation of
migrant agency. Male migrants are often viewed as threatening, as ‘dan-
gerous’ criminals, potential terrorists, or ‘illegal’ border crossers. Female
migrants, by contrast, are often perceived as vulnerable, endangered, ‘pas-
sive’ victims of trafficking, or forced migrants and refugees driven by polit-
ical events beyond their control. These gendered constructions of migrants
as ‘victims’ or ‘villains’ obscure two important points: first, the role of
states in producing people as ‘irregular migrants’ or as ‘forced migrants’
through policies of citizenship and border control; second, the multiple
ways in which migrants assert agency and create room for manoeuvre,
even from marginalised and constrained positions.
10 B. FERNANDEZ

Although migration studies scholars often make implicit assumptions

about migrant agency, by and large, ‘theories of migration have tended to
skirt around the problem of structure and agency, despite its importance’
(Bakewell 2010: 1690). Bakewell is critical of the eclectic ‘mix and match’
approaches that (implicitly or explicitly) use theories of agency to fit
diverse contextual and temporal frames of migration, and argues that such
approaches contain inevitable incompatibilities and contradictions in their
underlying assumptions. In the past two decades, scholarly attention to
migrant agency has proceeded in a few key theoretical directions, largely
determined by disciplinary boundaries. The resulting variations in the
contours of the ‘structure-agency’ debate within migration studies have
implications for both methodologies and constitutive assumptions.
The dominant preference of migration scholars in anthropology and
sociology is to draw on the ‘theories of practice’ of Anthony Giddens
(1984), whose ‘structuration’ approach conceptualises agency as inevita-
bly shaped by social structures; and on Pierre Bourdieu’s (1977) concept
of the ‘habitus,’ which shows how, despite the endless variations of possi-
ble actions they can engage in at any given point, human beings are pre-
disposed to act in particular ways. For sociologists and anthropologists,
agency is ‘the socio-culturally mediated capacity to act’ (Ahearn 2001: 112,
emphasis mine). It cannot simply be understood as the free will of a ratio-
nal individual actor but must be seen as a product of the contexts these
actors inhabit.
The practice theories of Giddens and Bourdieu have been criticised for
flattening agency, particularly in explanations of how agency can be resis-
tant or even transformative. The resistant agency of migrants has been
explored in two ethnographic studies of Sri Lankan migrant domestic
workers (Gamburd 2000; Moukarbel 2009) which draw on James Scott’s
conceptualisation of the agency of oppressed groups as forms of hidden,
everyday resistance. Scott (1985, 1990) found that overt, organised resis-
tance among oppressed groups was rare but also that it is not the only
alternative to passive acceptance. Instead, resistance to oppressors more
commonly takes the form of deniable actions and inactions, such as foot-­
dragging or false compliance. These forms of resistance are particularly
effective when dominance is maintained through violence or its threat.
The ‘hidden transcript’ of concealed resistance allows ‘a veiled discourse of
dignity and self-assertion within the public transcript … in which ideologi-
cal resistance is disguised, muted and veiled for safety’s sake’ (Scott
1990: 137).
 1 THE WILL TO CHANGE 11

In her study of Filipino migrant domestic workers, Leah Briones offers

another approach to resolving the problem of an overemphasis on the
determinism of structure. Briones brings together Giddens’ structuration
theory and Amartya Sen’s (1999) concept of ‘capabilities’ to construct what
she terms ‘capable agency.’ She argues that ‘Agency is the capability to do,
but not necessarily to be. Capability is the freedom to make agency capable
to do and be…[the] interdependence between agency and capability in a
capability set, forms the concept of “capable agency”’ (Briones 2009: 166).
Other migration scholars have drawn on Emirbayer and Mische’s
(1998) conceptualisation of three aspects of agency: the iterational (habit-
ual), projective, and practical-evaluative. According to Emirbayer and
Mische, agency is ‘the temporally constructed engagement by actors of
different structural environments—the temporal relational contexts of
action—which, through the interplay of habit, imagination, and judg-
ment, both reproduces and transforms those structures in interactive
response to the problems posed by changing historical situations’
(Emirbayer and Mische 1998: 970). They observe that agency may be
applied to different ends: to recreate familiar conditions of the past, to
project forward to an imagined future, and to respond to the contingen-
cies of the present. Thus, central to their definition is the emphasis on the
temporal dimension of agency, which Bakewell et al. (2012) and Mainwaring
(2016) find useful for their analyses of the agency of migrants to the
European Union.
As political scientists, Strange, Squire, and Lundberg (2017) have
developed a framework for the analysis of irregular migrant agency that
focusses on the irregular migrant as a political subject. They pay attention
to the strategies migrants use in negotiating the processes of subjectifica-
tion, as well as to irregular migrants’ capacities to act in complex and
brutalised contexts (2017: 251, 252). They recognise that irregular
migrants are not merely ‘passive objects for [migration] governance.’
Rather, they are people who can make decisions, even in highly con-
strained circumstances, and actively participate in political claims-making
processes that contest their subjectification as irregular migrants (ibid.:
245–249). At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that such actions
by irregular migrants do not necessarily lead to clearly identifiable political
action to resolve their marginalisation.
While acknowledging that migrant capacity to resolve marginalisation
may be limited, migration scholars are nevertheless interested in the analy-
sis of the consequences and implications of migrant agency, not only for
12 B. FERNANDEZ

change in individual migrant lives, but also for broader social change. As
Bakewell (2010) observes, the analysis of migrant agency needs to be
­integrated with the wider question of migration theory. While migration
scholars are in agreement that no single ‘grand theory’ of migration can
account for the complexity, diversity, and temporal and contextual speci-
ficity of migratory processes, they acknowledge the utility of the proposal
by Massey et al. (1998: 281) of four key elements that are indispensable to
an integrated theory of migration: (1) analysis of the structural forces pro-
moting emigration in areas of origin; (2) analysis of the structural factors
enabling immigration in destinations; (3) consideration of the motiva-
tions, goals, and aspirations of migrants; and (4) analysis of the social and
economic structures that connect areas of outward and inward migration.
Thus, while migrant agency (considered in point 3) is integral to such a
framework, theories of migration that focus on a single element in isola-
tion will be incomplete. The theoretical understanding of migration and
migrant agency needs, therefore, to be ‘embedded’ in the social and politi-
cal contexts across which it occurs, as well as in the transformations
it produces.
I turn now to the feminist scholarship on agency. Feminists have long
been interested in analysing women’s capacity for agency; many view
women’s agency through individual and collective action as essential to
the emancipatory political project of challenging women’s subordination
(the denial of their agency) within patriarchal societies. The central con-
cerns of feminist scholarship on agency are, on the one hand, the question
of how to account for women’s complicit agency in the maintenance of
their own subordination, without attributing it to their ‘false conscious-
ness.’ On the other hand, feminists have been troubled by contemporary
discourses on women’s ‘choice,’ ‘empowerment,’ and ‘autonomy,’ which
are imbued with an idealised neoliberal conceptualisation of rational indi-
vidual action. Such discourses ignore the structural inequalities generated
by gender and other aspects of marginalised identity that set boundaries
on the ‘choices’ available to women. Reviewing a range of empirical stud-
ies of women’s agency and empowerment in developing countries, Kabeer
(1999) observes that ‘choice’ not only presumes the existence of alterna-
tives and the ability to not choose, but that distinctions also need to be
made between first-order and secondary choices. The former are those
choices that have significant consequences for the woman’s life, while the
latter are the routine, less significant, everyday actions.
 1 THE WILL TO CHANGE 13

In navigating a position between women’s complicity in the patriarchal

suppression of agency and the abundance of autonomous choice at oppos-
ing ends of the spectrum, feminist analyses that illuminate four i­ nterrelated
aspects of agency will be useful for this study of Ethiopian migrant wom-
en’s agency. First, an analysis of the agency of women in conditions and
relationships of coercion and inequality will be important (see Madhok
et al. 2013: 2). More specifically, I pay attention to how agency is not only
gendered, but also how it intersects with hierarchies of age, class, race, and
nationality in complex ways. In doing so, I take heed of Mohanty’s (1991)
trenchant and influential critique that we need to move away from femi-
nist representations of poor and marginalised ‘third-world women’ as
tradition-bound, needy, and vulnerable ‘victims’ who lack agency and
need ‘rescue.’ Rather than homogenise or flatten the intersecting hierar-
chies of difference, it is necessary to acknowledge and undertake histori-
cally and culturally situated analyses of such differences when considering
migrant women’s agency.
Second, while acknowledging and contesting conditions of coercion
and inequality, some feminist scholars have cautioned us against falling
into the trap of equating agency exclusively with resistance to subordina-
tion. For instance, in her study of Bedouin women, Lila Abu-Lughod
(1990) cautions us against ‘romanticising resistance.’ She draws on Michel
Foucault to argue that resistance should be seen as a ‘diagnostic of power’
(Abu-Lughod 1990: 41) rather than somehow ‘outside’ relationships of
domination and subordination. Similarly, Saba Mahmood argues that we
should view agency not as resistance, but more broadly as the capacity for
action, going on to observe that:

If the ability to effect change in the world and in oneself is historically and
culturally specific (both in terms of what constitutes ‘change’ and the means
by which it is effected), then the meaning and sense of agency cannot be
fixed in advance, but must emerge through an analysis of the particular con-
cepts that enable specific modes of being, responsibility, and effectivity…In
this sense, the capacity for agency is entailed not only in acts that resist
norms but also in the multiple ways in which one inhabits norms.
(Mahmood 2009: 25)

From this perspective then, it becomes important to pay attention not

only to how norms operate to reinforce domination or to subvert it, but
critically also to how they constitute migrant women’s subjectivities.
14 B. FERNANDEZ

A third strand of feminist scholarship on agency that I draw on has

pointed to the importance of voice and speech practices (Spivak 2010;
Madhok et al. 2013), as well as silences (Malhotra and Rowe 2013; Keating
2013), in theories of agency. A useful exploration of these issues can be
found in the dialogue between Jane Parpart (2010) and Naila Kabeer
(2010). Parpart critiques the equivalence of agency and voice, arguing that
silence is essential for survival in certain situations and can, itself, be agentic.
The fourth aspect of agency feminists are interested in is collective
agency, as agency is not just individual but can also be ‘a matter of collec-
tive transformation’ (Madhok et al. 2013: 7). As these authors point out,
analyses of collective agency can account for the conditions under which
women who are subordinated by intersecting regimes of power can in
some instances collectively mobilise to challenge these constraints.
My analysis in this book integrates the consideration of these four femi-
nist perspectives on agency into Sherry Ortner’s (2006) conceptualisation
of agency. Ortner departs from the binary opposition of agency and struc-
ture, and from the notion that agency is in tension with resistance. She
views agency as two distinct but interrelated fields of meaning: ‘agency as
power’ and ‘agency as cultural project’ (Ortner 2006: 152, 153). The
former sense lends itself to examining agency in terms of the exercise of
power by individuals (both coercive and resistive), while the latter investi-
gates how social actors (empowered or disempowered) play the ‘games of
their culture’ and, in doing so, reproduce or transform the game itself.
This conceptualisation of agency emphasises the existence of inherent
structural contradictions that are potentially destabilising, thus allowing
for the possibility of social transformation, and preventing the reproduc-
tion of the hegemonic social order from being a foregone conclusion.

Conceptualising Migration and Social Reproduction

Taking heed of migration scholars’ exhortations to examine migrant
agency in tandem with the individual and social changes it produces
(Bakewell 2010; Van Hear 2010), this book uses the concept of social
reproduction to analyse the transformations produced by Ethiopian
migrant women’s agency at the individual and social levels. Viewing social
change through the lens of social reproduction is a key feminist analytical
strategy as I outline briefly below (and engage in greater discussion
in Chap. 6).
 1 THE WILL TO CHANGE 15

Feminist scholars developed the notion of ‘social reproduction’ from

Marx’s original recognition of the importance of the social processes and
labour involved in producing and maintaining human beings, both daily
and intergenerationally (Edholm et al. 1978; Bhattacharya 2019). Feminist
scholarly interest in social reproduction from the 1970s onwards noted the
significance of women’s labour in social reproduction, and how it is under-
valued, despite being essential. An early categorisation of social reproduc-
tion, now commonly accepted by feminists, views it as consisting of three
elements: biological reproduction of the next generation of labourers, the
daily maintenance and regeneration of labourers (through unpaid produc-
tive, domestic, subsistence, and care labouring within households), and the
reproduction of labour as a social class (Edholm et al. 1978).
More recent feminist scholarship has opened up numerous new per-
spectives by focussing on a wide range of variables within the domain of
social reproductive labour, from geographical variations in households to
the role of state and market forces in contributing to social reproduction.
The term thus refers to reproductive labour carried out in institutional
sites, including the home, and includes activities such as the care and
socialisation of children, care for the elderly, and the maintenance of com-
munal and familial ties. Further, feminists acknowledge that social repro-
duction and reproductive labour must be analysed in an intersectional way
that integrates gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, and class as significant
aspects of the processes under consideration, particularly since the ‘dirty
work’ of socially reproductive labour tends to be assigned persistently to
racially and ethnically marginalised groups (Glenn 1992; Duffy 2007).
Globalisation and the restructuring of the post-industrial economies of
Europe and North America in the 1990s led to crucial concomitant shifts
in the structures of social reproduction in which low-wage migrants were
increasingly in demand to undertake social reproductive labour. As Truong
puts it, ‘the globalisation of production is accompanied by its intimate
“Other”, i.e. reproduction’ (Truong 1996: 47). Research on Asian women
migrants recognised the significant contributions of migrant women work-
ers to social reproduction (Asis et al. 2004). Migrant women’s labour plays
a crucial role in social reproduction across borders or, as Kofman and
Raghuram point out, ‘the global transfer of different kinds of reproductive
labour from one class, ethnic group, nation, or region to another’ (2015: 3).
In weaving the narrative of Ethiopian migrant women in this book, I
use Ortner’s concepts of ‘agency as power’ and ‘agency as cultural project’
as the warp to analyse their agency in the two contexts of Ethiopia and the
16 B. FERNANDEZ

destination countries. Within these contexts, I examine the construction

of agency not just through their actions, speech, and resistance, but also
through silences; the temporal dimensions of their agency; and the collec-
tive forms of agency that women create. To provide texture for the weft, I
analyse the changes in the patterns of social reproduction in both these
contexts. I argue that such a framework combines the rigour and the con-
ceptual suppleness needed to provide insight into migrant women’s inten-
tions and desires; their everyday practices, actions, speech, and silences. It
also offers scope to analyse their negotiations across diverse locations with
multiple actors (family members, employers, brokers and agents, and rep-
resentatives of government and non-government organisations); and to
analyse the transformations their migration has brought about.

Methodological Journey
My journey towards this book began with my interest in migration as a
phenomenon that constitutes a critical flashpoint of contestations around
global inequality in the twenty-first century. I identified the opportunity
to engage in an empirical migration research project during a personal visit
to Ethiopia in 2009. At Bole international airport in Addis Ababa, I
observed the initially startling sight of long queues of young Ethiopian
women waiting to board flights to destinations in the Middle East.
Although airport and airline officials tended to be peremptory and dismis-
sive towards them, the women themselves were engaged in lively conver-
sations with each other, exchanging news and making contacts. I resolved
to better understand this migration trajectory and later secured funding
for the first phase of research in 2010. In this phase, I conducted fieldwork
in Addis Ababa and two major destination countries: Lebanon and Kuwait.
My focus was primarily on the work experiences of the women, as well as
on the legal and policy contexts pertaining to migration in all three
locations.
In 2014, I embarked on the second phase of research. This aimed to
understand the consequences of migration not only for the lives of migrant
women but also for their families and communities. I wanted to situate the
analysis of migration outcomes within a gendered understanding of the set
of social relations that regulate the division of labour and responsibilities,
the reciprocal obligations, and claims, between members of the household
and members of wider social networks, particularly at the village level. I
was fortunate to secure the support of the Wellbeing and Illbeing Dynamics
 1 THE WILL TO CHANGE 17

in Ethiopia (WIDE) research team to conduct this phase of the research in

two villages: Kormargeffia and Oda Dawata. These two villages are part of
the WIDE project’s ongoing, 25-year longitudinal study of 20 Ethiopian
villages (Pankhurst 2017, see also http://ethiopiawide.net). In consulta-
tion with the WIDE team, I selected these villages because the WIDE
research had documented out-migration by large numbers of young
women. The in-depth socio-economic analysis of development pathways
in these two villages presented in the WIDE research offers vital, rich con-
textual background for my own project to draw on.
In 2016, during the third phase of research, I focussed on the care
needs of Ethiopian migrant women and their families. In particular, I
explored the ways in which women met their needs for healthcare and
childcare. In this phase, I undertook field research in Hayk, a rural village
near Dessie, in a region known for out-migration. I also conducted a sec-
ond phase of field research in Lebanon. I discovered that Rahel Tsegaye7—a
woman I had met in 2010 during the first phase of research in Lebanon—
had in the interim set up Mesewat8 as a support organisation for migrant
Ethiopian women in the country. The incredible warmth and enthusiasm
with which the women of Mesewat embraced my research project and
shared their lives was critically important in deepening my insights during
this phase of research.
Across the three phases, I undertook 210 in-depth qualitative inter-
views with migrant and returnee migrant women and their family mem-
bers; with government and NGO representatives; and with brokers and
employment agents. I also conducted ten focussed group discussions with
migrant and returnee migrant women. Interview durations averaged
1 hour, ranging from 20 to 90 minutes. Although I understand basic
Amharic, I used an interpreter to conduct interviews in all locations, and
the interviews were then translated and transcribed. In contacting women
and family members to request interviews, I used snowballing techniques
to identify potential interviewees. When interviewees were introduced
through personal contacts in this way, the higher level of trust resulted in
greater openness and, correspondingly, longer and higher quality inter-
views. A purposive sampling strategy ensured diversity in the ethnic and
religious backgrounds of the women. Interviews and focussed group dis-
cussions were supplemented by embedded ethnographic observation of
Mesewat activities in Lebanon, by official data and policy documents, and
by newspaper reports and secondary research.
18 B. FERNANDEZ

Field research was conducted in both the origin country (Ethiopia) and
in two major destination countries (Lebanon and Kuwait). Research sites
within Ethiopia included urban and rural locations: the capital city Addis
Ababa as well as the rural regions of Oda Dawata, Kormargeffia, and
Hayk. The research was conducted over three periods, which together
provided an important temporal perspective on the study: in Ethiopia,
Lebanon, and Kuwait in 2010; in Ethiopia in 2014; and in Ethiopia and
Lebanon in 2016. This book thus draws on longitudinal, multi-sited,
qualitative research methodologies, distinguishing it from other studies of
migration that have tended to focus on migrants’ experiences at a specific
point in time and in a specific spatial location (either the migrants’ origin
or destination).

Outline of Chapters
The organisation of this book mirrors the temporal arc of women’s
migration trajectories: their aspirations, the journeys they undertake,
and their experiences first at their destinations and then on returning to
Ethiopia. This introductory chapter has outlined the aspirations of the
Ethiopian women who undertake migration. The second chapter analy-
ses how these aspirations are produced within and through the struc-
tures of Ethiopia’s political economy, which have generated large
emigration flows of both men and women from the country. The chapter
is organised in two parts. In the first, I situate the migratory trajectory
of Ethiopian migrant domestic workers to the Middle East within the
larger historical and political economy context of the major movements
of people in and from Ethiopia, and provide an outline of the gendered
patterns of contemporary migrations from Ethiopia. To explain these
patterns, I focus the analysis on transformations in three areas: demo-
graphic changes; gender-­differentiated outcomes for employment and
education; and pro-women legal reforms and policy measures. I argue
that substantive developments in each of these areas have contributed
significantly to the emigration trajectories of Ethiopian women. In the
second part of the chapter, I document the modalities of women
migrant’s journeys and discuss the evolution of migration governance
legislation in Ethiopia. The section analyses the official discourse on traf-
ficking, the politics of the Ethiopian state’s management of mass depor-
tations of Ethiopian migrant workers from Saudi Arabia in 2013–2014,
 1 THE WILL TO CHANGE 19

and the government’s official bans on migration. Together, the two parts
of this chapter point to the paradox of explicit policies put in place to
‘protect’ Ethiopian women migrant workers by prohibiting and regulat-
ing migration; I argue that these ‘protections’ run counter to the politi-
cal economy drivers of the state’s implicit need for migration outlined in
the first part of the chapter.
The third chapter considers how women’s capacity to exercise agency
in their working lives in the destination countries is structured by the insti-
tution of the kafala, the system of migrant sponsorship prevalent in the
countries of the Middle East. The chapter argues that the kafala produces
a deep, pervasive, and racialised hierarchy within which Ethiopian migrant
domestic workers are viewed and treated as inferior beings. I show how,
notwithstanding these constraints, Ethiopian women have evolved multi-
ple strategies of overt and covert resistance within their working lives,
much like migrant domestic workers of other nationalities. In particular, I
analyse the phenomenon of women who become ‘run-aways,’ leaving
their contracted employer to take up work as ‘freelancers.’ While this
choice often improves their work conditions, running away does not nec-
essarily produce conditions of ‘freedom.’ The chapter argues that an
examination of the diversity of women’s lived experiences as contract and
freelance migrant workers is essential to an analysis of the degrees of
agency women exercise, particularly in resisting their unfree working con-
ditions. Such a perspective allows us to look past the relations of domina-
tion exercised within the employment contract itself and to move beyond
the view of women as ‘passive victims.’
Chapter 4 provides insights into the women’s agency in dimensions of
their lives beyond work, drawing specifically on empirical material from
Lebanon. In building this portrait of their social lives as migrants, the
chapter focusses on the agency of women in four specific domains: first, on
their relationships with men; second, on the experiences of women who
give birth to and raise children abroad; third, on women’s agency in caring
for themselves and each other when they need healthcare; and fourth, on
the processes of women’s collective agency through informal and formal
organisations.
In the fifth chapter, we return with the migrant women to Ethiopia, to
understand the consequences of migration for the women themselves, and
for their relationships with their families. Evidence from the interviews
conducted with returnee migrants, members of their families, and with
representatives of the community and local government officials indicates
20 B. FERNANDEZ

that while the economic transformations are often modest, the social
transformations experienced by families and communities can be signifi-
cant. In particular, the chapter documents the uneven shifts in gender
relationships: women have greater self-confidence and autonomy, they are
more valued, and the birth of daughters is welcomed. But returnee
migrants are often betrayed by family members who misuse remittances,
or they may experience conflicts with parents or siblings, which are unset-
tling to the social fabric in significant ways.
Drawing on the evidence presented in the preceding chapters, in the
concluding sixth chapter, I revisit the concept of the ‘will to change’ intro-
duced in this chapter and argue that it is important to examine more
closely the multiple subjectivities produced by ‘will-full’ migrant women.
I analyse the implications of this migration trajectory for social reproduc-
tion at the destinations and in Ethiopia, noting that there is a double
depletion in women’s own capacities for social reproduction. Despite this
double depletion, migrant women often still find resources for the pursuit
of the personal goal of changing their own lives. Finally, I draw the first
two arguments into the framework of ‘agency as projects’ and ‘agency as
power,’ to make a case for the degree and direction of the transformations
that Ethiopian women’s migration has produced, arguing that while the
women may assert forms of individual agency in the Middle East, as a class
of workers, they are severely constrained by the structures of the kafala. In
contrast, in Ethiopia, their exercise of agency has greater transformative
potential.

Notes
1. The idea that migration has become a normative behaviour and a rite of pas-
sage for young people; see Cohen and Sirkeci (2011).
2. All names of interviewees are pseudonyms.
3. A town in the Wollo zone of the Amhara region of Ethiopia.
4. A village near the town of Assela, in the Oromia region of Ethiopia.
5. A village near the town of Debre Birhan, in the Amhara region of Ethiopia.
6. 60 Birr was approximately equivalent to US$3 in 2014 (in 2014, 1 Ethiopian
Birr was equivalent to approximately 5 cents in USD; following successive
devaluations, in 2019, it is equivalent to 3 cents).
7. I use Rahel’s real name with her permission, as an important acknowledge-
ment of her leadership, and also because it would be difficult to de-identify her.
8. ‘Mesewat’ is an Amharic word that connotes a religious offering or
donation.
Another random document with
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752

pachymeningitis,

748

Cicatrices, myelitic,

815

Cimicifuga, use of, in chorea,

455

Circular insanity,

151

Circulation, obstructed, as a cause of spinal hyperæmia,

802
Classification of alcoholism,

573

of chronic lead-poisoning,

678

of mental diseases,

105-109

Clavus hystericus,

252

Cleanliness, importance in cerebral hemorrhage and apoplexy,

977
Climate, change of, value in neurasthenia,

358

in neuralgia,

1223

in spinal sclerosis,

903

influence on causation of chronic lead-poisoning,

680

of epilepsy,

474

of hystero-epilepsy,

291

of thermic fever,

389
Climate and season, influence on causation of chorea,

444

of hysteria,

218

Climacteric insanity,

173

period, cerebral hyperæmia in,

771

Climatic and atmospheric conditions, influence on causation of

tetanus,

544
Clonic spasms, in nervous diseases,

45

Clonus, significance in nervous diseases,

54

Clot, of intracranial hemorrhage, changes in,

920

Club-foot, in family form of tabes dorsalis,

871

in infantile spinal paralysis,

1127

Coca and cocaine, habitual addiction to,

667

use of, in alcoholism,

643

646

in the opium habit,

676

Cod-liver oil, use of, in chronic alcoholism,

644

646

hydrocephalus,

775

in general paralysis of the insane,

201

in neuralgia,

1224

in tubercular meningitis,

735

Cold, influence on causation of Bell's palsy,

1203

of congestion of spinal membranes,

747

of neuralgia,

1219

of neuritis,

1190
 of tetanus,

544

use of, in concussion of the brain,

911

in external pachymeningitis,

706

in thermic fever,

396-398

Cold and wet, as a cause of disseminated sclerosis,

884

of tabes dorsalis,

855
Cold pack, use of, in cerebral anæmia,

789

Colic, of chronic lead-poisoning,

683

Coma,

382

785

alcoholic, characters of,

589

598

description of, in nervous diseases,

26-28

in abscess of the brain,

796

in acute spinal meningitis,

750

in cerebral anæmia,

785

in chronic lead-poisoning,

688

in tubercular meningitis,

727

Complicating insanity,

174
Complications of hysteria,

258

of progressive muscular atrophy with atrophic spinal paralysis,

1149

unilateral facial atrophy,

699

of tumors of the brain,

1045

spinal cord,

1106

Compression of nerve-trunks, in hystero-epilepsy,

310
Concussion of the brain,

908

spinal cord,

912

Condition of brain in sleep,

775

Confusional insanity, primary,

167

Congestion of cerebral dura mater,

704
 of pia mater,

715

of spinal meningitis,

746

Conium, use of, in chorea,

455

in paralysis agitans,

438

in tetanus,

557

Conjunctivitis in the chloral habit,

664

,
665

Consciousness, double, in nervous diseases,

28

loss of, in cerebral hemorrhage and apoplexy,

933

in nervous diseases,

26

in occlusion of cerebral vessels,

952

perverted, in catalepsy,

320

Constitutional diseases, influence on causation of neuralgia,

1217

affective mental disease,

142

Constipation in chronic hydrocephalus,

743

in chronic lead colic,

683

in tubercular meningitis,

725

729

736

in tumors of the brain,

1045

Constriction about waist, sense of, in acute spinal pachymeningitis,

747

in disseminated sclerosis,

874

in spinal meningeal hemorrhage,

752

in spinal syphilis,

1025

in tabes dorsalis,

829

in tumors of spinal cord,

1093
Contact-sense in tabes dorsalis,

833

Contractures, hysterical,

244

in disseminated sclerosis,

888

in hemiplegia,

962

in hystero-epilepsy,

297

in infantile spinal paralysis,

1127
 in inflammation of the brain,

791

in secondary sclerosis,

987

in tumors of the brain,

1039

Convulsions in abscess of the brain,

796

in atrophy of the brain,

994

in chronic lead-poisoning,

688
 in hysteria,

236

in infantile spinal paralysis,

1116

in spina bifida,

759

in thrombosis of cerebral veins and sinuses,

986

in tubercular meningitis,

728

in tumors of the brain,

1039

Convulsive disorders, local,

461

form of acute alcoholism,

593

Co-ordination, disturbance of, in tabes dorsalis,

830-833

in family form of tabes dorsalis,

871

Copodyscinesia (see

Writers and Artisans, Neural Disorders of

).

Cord, spinal, lesions of, in alcoholism,

622