This paper provides a detailed analysis of financial remittances to families in rural Andean Ecuador. Five different types of transfers are identified and analyzed: family maintenance remittances, migrants’ savings, debt repayment, emergency money, and gift money. In each case, the dollars families receive as remittances have various meanings. In order to fully understand migrants’ money transfers to their families, the relationships between senders and receivers, which include mu-tual—and sometimes diverging—expectations and obligations, need to be taken into account. These relationships are complex, and shaped by gender, age, and kinship considerations. © 2015, El Colegio de la Frontiera Norte. All rights reserved.

Transnational families Andes Gender remittances Ecuador

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