Communication technologies and legitimate consumption: making sense of healthcare remittances in Cameroonian transnational relationships

Abstract

Research on the significance of the mobile phone and internet in transnational family relationships shows that these media provide direct platforms for negotiating remittances. My interest in this article is not so much in how they are used to coordinate and channel money home as in their appropriation to meet expectations of reciprocity. The article draws from field narratives collected among Cameroonians in Germany and in Cameroon to reveal contestations over what can be described as legitimate consumption within the Cameroonian transnational social sphere. Underlying the arguments in this article is my observation that direct communication within the Cameroonian transnational sphere is beset by so much mistrust, discontent and uncertainty that remitters must specify what they are remitting money for. Healthcare in Cameroon is considered an expenditure that is worthy of migrants' financial support.

Easy access: new dynamics in long-distance African intimacies

“…This includes helping families access Qur'anic education and paying for private schools, uniforms and other school supplies. Indeed, some migrants suggested that, because paying for medical bills and school fees seemed like an unequivocal obligation of a migrant, they suspected that some requests for medical expenses or school fees were in fact a cover for purchasing other things that they might otherwise have said no to (Tazanu 2018).…”