Abstract
Due to the lack of domestic employment, overseas labour migration has become a key economic strategy for individuals from various social classes in rural Bangladesh, particularly for men. During this migration period, the wives of overseas migrants, known as probashir bou in village parlance, are to ‘wait’ and maintain family life and the household on their own, alongside their in-laws. Those whose husbands migrated in the 1990s struggled to manage a family life that their parents had not experienced. In contrast, second-generation probashir bou possess a certain level of knowledge and experience due to the absence of their fathers. While waiting for their ‘imagined lives’ with their husbands upon their return, probashir bou not only maintain their family lives and manage the household but also transform the notion of their family life and their social and kin relationships. In this article, I examine comparative narratives of the first- and second-generation probashir bou based on their lived experiences, including living conditions, communication with their migrant husbands and the challenges they encounter in their lives. Their agency swings between the collective and personal, and the new subjectivities as wives and mothers stem from their husbands’ migration.
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