Gender issues in the suitcase trade: the case study of the "sacoleiras" in São-Paulo

Panel The 'silent revolution'?: the feminization of the labour force and gender dynamics in Africa, mod. Anne Calvès, Agnes Adjamagbo http://www.nomadit.co.uk/ecas/ecas2013/panels.php5?PanelID=2059African business women from Mozambique and Angola export goods from São-Paulo (Brazil) through informal rules and unwritten codes to avoid customs taxes. These female entrepreneurs called " sacoleiras " (backpacker in portuguese) are challenging the traditional informal trade mainly dominated by men and violent negotiations which are taking place in the importation process (Tarrius 2002). Cross-border female exporters try to avoid this obstacles thanks to a specific knowledge which socially feeds gendered relationships with customs officials. To export hairs, clothes, or electronic goods transported in their suitcases, they mobilize competences and skills that can be understood as a "reversal" of power relationships. This capacity of (re)negociation leads to the feminization of the informal economy while it underlines the rise of women's successful trajectories in the suitcase trade. However, literature on gender issues within the south-south informal trade highlights the gap between the economic power of women and the women's agency in the household (Falquet 2010, Manry 2006). Thanks to an ethnographical study of female traders in the Bras Township located in the center of São-Paulo, the collection of these life trajectories raises the issue of the contradictions between women's social status as mothers and their role as business-women, both pressured by the current economic competition and the global crisis.This paper explores a more complex understanding of women's economic power which has to be thought right inside their political and economical networks, and through a gender division of informal work and family's roles