Female Internal Mobility in Gondar and HIV. Between the Speeches and Voices of Women on the Margins of their Future

This article analyses the experiences of internal mobility of HIV-positive women who at the moment of the ethnographic surveys lived in the city of Gondar, in North Western Ethiopia. The "biographical experiences" of five women who migrated from rural areas and used to live in conditions of social marginality will be placed in the context of a wider analysis of the main configurations of female internal mobility based on the age and social origin of the migrant subjects. The article reveals the multifaceted nature and perennially unstable conditions of these women's migration routes, which begin at the time they make their initial plans for departure, and continue through opportunities and constraints along their path towards a future that then becomes crystallized as a "biographical experience" of the time of change. We will argue that their HIV-positive status, with all its manifestations and consequences, constitutes a pre-eminent conditioning factor that does not constitute a "biographical disruption". It does, however, contribute towards the "subjection" of individuals on the margins of society and the action areas of established authority. Particularly, the analysis of the subjective relationships of these five women with the norms and categories of the dominant discourse that shape their "virtual social identity", will highlight that the HIV results in both a new opportunity and a constraint to engage with the future.