Hope and Uncertainty in Contemporary African Migration

214 Pages·2017·2.733 MB·English

by  Nauja Kleist, Dorte Thorsen (eds.)

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Hope and Uncertainty in
Contemporary African
Migration
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9 This volume examines the relationship between hope, mobility, and immo-
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4 bility in African migration. Through case studies set within and beyond the
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: continent, it demonstrates that hope offers a unique prism for analyzing the
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0 social imaginaries and aspirations which underpin migration in situations
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a of uncertainty, deepening inequality, and delimited access to global circuits
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o of legal mobility.
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e The volume takes departure in a mobility paradox that characterizes con-
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temporary migration. Whereas people all over the world are exposed to
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a widening sets of meaning of the good life elsewhere, an increasing number
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a, of people in the Global South have little or no access to authorized modes of
i international migration. This book examines how African migrants respond
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or to this situation. Focusing on hope, it explores migrants’ temporal and spa-
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i tial horizons of expectation and possibility and how these horizons link to
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C mobility practices. Such analysis is pertinent as precarious life conditions
f and increasingly restrictive regimes of mobility characterize the lives of
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y many Africans, while migration continues to constitute important livelihood
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si strategies and to be seen as pathways of improvement. Whereas involuntary
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e immobility is one consequence, another is the emergence and consolidation
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ni of new destinations emerging in the Global South. The volume examines
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this development through empirically grounded and theoretically rich case
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y studies in migrants’ countries of origin, zones of transit, and in new and
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d established destinations in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Latin
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d America and China. It thereby offers an original perspective on linkages
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o between migration, hope, and immobility, ranging from migration aspira-
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n tions to return.
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Nauja Kleist is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International
Studies.
Dorte Thorsen is theme leader on gender and qualitative research in the
Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium, University of
Sussex, UK and associate researcher at LPED, Aix Marseille Université–IRD,
France.
Routledge Studies in Anthropology
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com
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9 24 Magical Consciousness
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4 An Anthropological and Neurobiological Approach
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: Susan Greenwood and Erik D. Goodwyn
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at 25 Diagnostic Controversy
o] Cultural Perspectives on Competing Knowledge in Healthcare
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e Edited by Carolyn Smith-Morris
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n 26 Transpacifi c Americas
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S Encounters and Engagements Between the Americas and
a, the South Pacifi c
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n Edited by Eveline Dürr and Philipp Schorch
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li 27 The Anthropology of Postindustrialism
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C Ethnographies of Disconnection
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o Edited by Ismael Vaccaro, Krista Harper and Seth Murray
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si 28 Islam, Standards, and Technoscience
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e In Global Halal Zones
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ni Johan Fischer
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y 29 After the Crisis
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d Anthropological thought, neoliberalism and the aftermath
e James G. Carrier
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l 30 Hope and Uncertainty in Contemporary African Migration
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w Edited by Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorsen
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31 Work and Livelihoods in Times of Crisis
Edited by Susana Narotzky and Victoria Goddard
32 Anthropology and Alterity
Edited by Bernhard Leistle
33 Mixed Race Identities in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacifi c Islands
Edited by Farida Fozdar and Kirsten McGavin
Hope and Uncertainty in
Contemporary African
Migration
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9 Edited by Nauja Kleist and
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4 Dorte Thorsen
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First published 2017
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
7 © 2017 selection and editorial matter, Nauja Kleist and Dorte
1 Thorsen; individual chapters, the contributors
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2 The right of Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorsen to be identified as
l the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
i
pr individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
A and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
9
1 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
4 reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
0 or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
:
0 photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
0
t retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
a
] Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks
o or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
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e explanation without intent to infringe.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
n A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
a
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a, LNiabmraersy: oKfl eCisotn, gNraesusj aC, aetdailtoogr.i n| gT hino rPsuenb,l iDcaotrioten, eDdaittoar .
i
n Title: Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration /
r
o edited by Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorsen.
if Description: London ; New York : Routledge, [2017]
l
a Identifiers: LCCN 2016017845 | ISBN 9781138961210 (hardback :
C
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315659916 (e-book)
of Subjects: LCSH: Africa—Emigration and immigration—Case studies. |
y African diaspora—Case studies. | Hope—Case studies.
it Classification: LCC JV8790 .H67 2017 | DDC 304.8096—dc23
s
r LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017845
e
v
i ISBN: 978-1-138-96121-0 (hbk)
n
U ISBN: 978-1-315-65991-6 (ebk)
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b Typeset in Sabon
d by ApexCoVantage, LCC
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Contents
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9 Preface vii
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4 NAUJA KLEIST AND DORTE THORSEN
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0 List of Contributors xi
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o] 1 I ntroduction : Studying Hope and Uncertainty in
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e African Migration 1
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D
n NAUJA KLEIST
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a, 2 How to Extract Hope from Papers? Classificatory
ni Performances and Social Networking in Cape Verdean
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o Visa Applications 21
f
i
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a HEIKE DROTBOHM
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y 3 Sticking to God: Brokers of Hope in Senegalese Migration
it to Argentina 40
s
r
e IDA MARIE VAMMEN
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4 Zouglou Music and Youth in Urban Burkina Faso:
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y Displacement and the Social Performance of Hope 58
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d JESPER BJARNESEN
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o 5 T he Lack of Liberty Drove Us There: Spatialized Instantiations
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w of Hope and Contested Diasporan Identity in the Liberian–
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D American Transnational Field (1810–2010) 76
STEPHEN C. LUBKEMANN
6 Prospective Moments, Eternal Salvation: The Production of
Hope in Nigerian Pentecostal Churches in China 94
HEIDI ØSTBØ HAUGEN
vi Contents
7 Hope and Uncertainty in Senegalese Migration to Spain:
Taking Chances on Emigration but not Upon Return 113
MARÍA HERNÁNDEZ-CARRETERO
8 The Migratory Adventure as a Moral Experience 134
SYLVIE BREDELOUP
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1 9 Death of a Gin Salesman: Hope and Despair among
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2 Ghanaian Migrants and Deportees Stranded in Niger 154
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ri HANS LUCHT
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9 10 Returning with Nothing but an Empty Bag: Topographies
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4 of Social Hope after Deportation to Ghana 173
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0: NAUJA KLEIST
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] Index 193
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Preface
Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorsen
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9 This book started with a walk. On a warm afternoon in March 2008 Nauja,
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4 one of the co-editors of this volume, met Sam. She was heading across the
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: campus of the University of Ghana, when a young man addressed her. ‘Hi,
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0 are you from the States?’ ‘No, why?’ Because, Sam explained in a broad
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a American accent, he loved America but was deported a few years ago.
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o What had started as a promising stay had gradually turned into an ill-fated
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e adventure, mainly because he could not regularize his papers. Now Sam was
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studying business but badly wanted to return to the United States again,
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a always on the alert for possible connections or opportunities to help him
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a, realize his dreams. Nauja studied Ghanaian migration policies at the time,
i but Sam’s story added to her growing puzzlement about the gulf between
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or policy-makers’ ideas about well-managed migration and the sense among
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i ordinary Ghanaians of feeling unable to realize their migratory aspirations.
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a
C She was intrigued.
f Meanwhile Dorte, the other co-editor, was doing research with adoles-
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y cent boys from rural Burkina Faso who audaciously set off on migration to
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si neighboring Côte d’Ivoire, sometimes without knowing where they would
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e sleep on arrival and sometimes with insufficient money for the entire fare.
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ni They talked about being housed and fed temporarily by strangers and help
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extended by migrant relatives, but their accounts also dwelled on suffering.
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y The boys were not pioneers but followed in the footsteps of older brothers,
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d fathers, and grandfathers in trying to broaden their opportunities and move
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d out of poverty. Dorte was astounded by her young interlocutors’ disregard
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o of barriers to their migration and how they had to negotiate border control,
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n whether they had the right papers or not.
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o Gradually, our initial curiosity grew into a research program on new
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geographies of hope and despair in West African migration, developed and
conducted with Ida Maria Vammen. We set out to explore the effects of
restrictive mobility regimes for West African migration, taking our departure
in a contemporary mobility paradox: that images and ideas of the good life,
often taking place elsewhere, are circulated all over the globe, while access to
legal international mobility circuits is a scarce resource for most people with
non-Western citizenship. We then asked what this mobility paradox means
viii Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorsen
for hope for West Africans migrants and their families, approaching hope as
an analytical perspective that highlights anticipation and the simultaneous
potentiality and uncertainty of the future.
Finalizing this book, the topic of hope, uncertainty, and migration seems
more topical than ever. The emergence of the so-called refugee crisis, with
one million people crossing the Mediterranean in 2015, has brought unprec-
edented public and political attention to migration. Poignant images have
7 gone viral of the small body of Aylan Kurdi, washed ashore, and of the many
1 men, women, and children on highways walking from the southern and
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2 eastern borders of the European Union. Meanwhile, most European states
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ri have implemented increasingly restrictive asylum and migration policies. In
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A the process, the terms migrant and refugee have become conflated into one
9 category, which is now widely connoted with persons whose mobility is
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4 considered illegal and purely motivated by economic motives. In this flawed
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: logic, migrants are pulled by mirages of Europe, as soldiers of fortune, driven
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0 by ignorant hopes, while refugees’ need for, and right to, protection has been
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a downplayed unless they agree to remain in the so-called neighboring area.
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o This is a deeply problematic assumption which fails to take into account
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e the multiplicity of political, sociocultural, and economic dimensions of
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mobility. It also ignores the ambivalence and precariousness of hope. Focus-
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a ing on stereotypes, the webs of social relations, livelihood practices, col-
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a, lective social imaginaries, and aspirations remain hidden or are impugned.
i Likewise, the focus on boat migration easily overshadows the fact that most
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or African migrants do not cross the Mediterranean in a rickety boat to Europe.
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i Rather they tend to travel within their region or, increasingly, orient them-
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a
C selves towards destinations in the so-called Global South. A considerable
f number also find themselves stranded e n route, emphasizing the importance
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y of involuntary immobility and the many constraints that migrants face.
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si In this collection, we explore these other dimensions of African migra-
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e tion through nine case studies, ranging from countries of origin to destina-
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ni tions elsewhere in Africa, Europe, and further afield. The chapters analyze
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how migrants, their families, and local communities deal with the effects
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y of restrictive mobility regimes and economic and political crisis, answering
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d the following questions: What are the meanings and implications of hope in
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d African migration? How is hope generated, distributed, brokered, or with-
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o held in practices of mobility and situations of immobility—and how is it
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n associated with different locations and futures? We thereby aim to put hope
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o in context.
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Finally, a note of thanks to all the people and institutions who have made
this book possible. Research is a collective affair where we learn from other
scholars and our interlocutors. It requires not only rigor but also openness
to serendipity. An afternoon walk may be the first step in an unexpected
direction. Whether those steps turn into something tangible—a research
program or a book—depends on whether people want to talk and work
with you. We have a lot to be grateful for. We thank the Danish Research
Preface ix
Council for Independent Research for generous funding. The chapters in this
volume are partly based on papers from a panel at the 13th IUAES (Inter-
national Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences) congress in
Manchester, 5–10 August 2013, and partly on new contributions. We are
grateful to all participants in our panel, particularly to discussant Mattia
Fumanti, University of St. Andrews. Likewise, we would like to thank all the
contributors to this volume for their commitment; the two anonymous peer
7 reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments on the entire man-
1 uscript; Jenny Money for her thorough language editing; great colleagues
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2 at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), especially Ida Maria
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ri Vammen, Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, Robin May Schott and Finn Stepputat,
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A for commenting on and discussing different parts of the book; and finally
9 the participants at the end-of-award conference ‘Precarious Futures?’, 16–19
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4 September 2015, whose papers and discussions—although not meant for
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: this book—helped to refine the final edition and argument.
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0 We further thank the many interlocutors in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Côte
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a d’Ivoire, Morocco, and elsewhere who have been so generous with their
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o time, life stories, and ideas to help us understand some of the many aspects
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e of migratory pathways. As her mother’s four-year-long fight against cancer
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comes to an end, Dorte extends her thanks to the cancer treatment units, the
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a palliative team, and her sister and father for doing much of the in-person
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a, care and to telecommunications for allowing care work at a distance. Nauja
i is grateful to her family, Sophia, Jonathan and Justin, for staying with her
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or in Ghana during extended fieldwork trips and for their patience and love.
f
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al Copenhagen and Brighton, December 2015
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