Panel 97: African Migration and Auto/biography: Ethnographic and Theoretical Approaches

Biographic and autobiographic narratives are an important and often used element of migration studies. The biographic form is perceived as lending itself to the description of individual migration experiences as well as of the contexts in which these experiences take place, linking individual and social histories. At the same time, the use of biographic approaches has been criticized for various reasons, reaching from the construction of the illusion of biographic coherence to its alleged limited value in the analysis of larger, structural issues of social process.

This panel will explore the possibilities and difficulties of the use of biographic approaches in the context of contemporary African migrations within the African continent as well as towards Europe. Despite their importance for understanding how societal transformations are experienced over a wide range of different geographic contexts, auto/biographic approaches are faced with a number of difficulties both in academic and non-academic forms of writing.

Where illegality marks the entry into Europe, for instance, both biographic narration as well as the collection of such narratives has become problematic, involving complex questions in relation to what can be said as well as confidentiality and anonymity. The issue of voice, integral to writing and language choices, is always central.

The panel invites ethnographic papers concerned with biographical dimensions of African migration, reaching from the use of biography as a mode of documenting present migration experiences, to memories of migration as well as papers dealing with the use of biographic approaches on a more theoretical level.