Trading Traitors: Cultural Negotiations of Female Mobility in a West African Borderland

In the Shabe border region of the Republic of Bénin and Nigeria, a combination of transnational political and economic processes has prompted an economic recession and increased competition over economic resources in the borderland. In the wake of economic decline, women and men in the community of Ibere have engaged in struggles over female mobility in the borderland. Debates over women's movements across the international border are being shaped by conceptions of gender, community, and national difference; marketing practices; ritual practice; discourses of sexuality; and cultural constructions of the border.