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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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"Rather die on the path of adventure, than to die in shame in your father's village"
| Panel |
28. Generations of Migrants in West Africa
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| Paper ID | 258 |
| Author(s) |
Jonsson, Gunvor
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| Paper |
View paper (PDF)
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| Abstract | The title of this paper is a proverb from the Kayes region in Mali. Based on five months of anthropological fieldwork in a Malian village dominated by the ethnic group Soninke, this study seeks to examine the characteristics and social significance of conceptions of migration to western countries.
The focus is primarily on the young men in the village, who can be characterised as ‘involuntarily immobile’ – they aspire to migrate to western countries, but are unable to do so (cf Carling 2002). Young men usually drop out of school, envisioning a career as professional migrants. Waiting for their chance to leave, they socialise in small bachelor groups termed the “grin”, where they drink tea and listen to music tapes. In the context of illiteracy, music plays a significant role shaping and transmitting discourses on migration.
The young men’s involuntary immobility should be considered in a context where, on the one hand, their social identity is highly founded on a tradition of mobility, migration being an essential step to attaining manhood and establishing a household in the village; and on the other hand, the tightening of immigration policies in western countries, whereby it has become nearly impossible for the young men to obtain legal entry and employment abroad. Increasingly since Mali’s independence in 1960, Soninke migrants working mainly in France have sustained their large extended families and financed the development of basic social infrastructure and means of communication in the village. The economic system of the village is therefore based on migrant remittances. The very rapid and drastic shift from agriculture as the primary form of subsistence to a dependence on monetary economy has turned around conceptions of the village from being a space of production characterised by physical labour, into a “space of consumption” where making a decent living is seen as impossible. Traditional gender separation, a social caste system, and a generational hierarchy still dominate social interaction in the village. Yet, this rigid system of social stratification is competing with urban lifestyle and global youth culture, which has heightened the young villagers’ aspirations of consumption and consequently, their aspirations of mobility.
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