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- Convenors:
-
Jesper Bjarnesen
(The Nordic Africa Institute)
Cristiano Lanzano (The Nordic Africa Institute (Uppsala, Sweden))
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- Chair:
-
Marie Deridder
(UCLouvain)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Mode:
- Face-to-face
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 24 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
By looking beyond prevailing narratives approaching displacement exclusively as a factor of vulnerability and victimization, this panel empirically explores how long-standing labor mobility dynamics in Africa both endure and are refashioned by the escalation of multiple crises.
Long Abstract:
Over the past decade, the Sahel region and several other African countries have faced a rapidly deteriorating security situation accompanied by democratic backsliding and military take-overs in the wake of mounting jihadist and/or armed insurgencies, leading to massive population displacements. As a result, these populations are facing multiple and overlapping crises. This panel explores the human consequences of the escalation of insecurity and violence, with particular attention to the diverse roles of human mobility as both a source of vulnerability and a mitigating strategy in times of crisis.
Mobility in times of crisis is often understood in binary terms of forced versus voluntary migration, which entails that other effects and dynamics of mobility are overlooked. This panel invites contributions that examine empirically how long-standing labor mobility dynamics both endure and are refashioned by the escalation of multiple crises. By looking beyond prevailing narratives approaching displacement exclusively as a factor of vulnerability and victimization, the aim is to explore how people on the move navigate uncertainty and develop strategies to cope with radical socio-political changes. Here are some of the questions that could be addressed. How people on the move plan, actualize and practice internal and transnational labor mobilities in times of crisis? What are their labor mobility-related hopes, aspirations, constraints and disillusions? What kind of (geo)political narrative do they mobilize to decrypt their contexts of labor mobility? What are the inequalities and power relations embedded in labor migration through an intersectional lens?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 24 July, 2024, -Marie Deridder (UCLouvain)
Paper short abstract:
This article empirically explores how Dogon guides, previously involved in Mali’s tourism industry before the crisis, have navigated through radical sociopolitical change and economic scarcity by using their tourism networks for their own mobility to cope with violence and uncertainty.
Paper long abstract:
Over the past decade, Mali has faced a complex crisis, resulting in large-scale population displacement and socio-political instability. However, before this turmoil, Mali enjoyed an international reputation for its tourism industry. Timbuktu, in northern Mali, and the Pays Dogon, in central Mali, are UNESCO World Heritage Sites and were famous for e.g. their hiking, music, masks and art festivals, attracting tourists from all over the world. In the 2000s, thousands of tourists came every year, contributing to a significant financial windfall for the Malian tourism industry. Today, these historic areas are affected by conflict and insecurity, which are widely reported in the international media. Tourism has stopped, forcing Dogon guides and tourism actors to find new professional horizons. This paper empirically explores how Dogon guides previously involved in the tourism industry have navigated through this radical socio-political change and economic scarcity. It shows that many of them used their tourism networks in Mali and abroad for their own mobility to escape conflicts and cope with violence and uncertainty. While keeping their identity as Dogon guides, they also rely heavily on their livelihood strategy of pluriactivity linked to their former seasonal tourism activity. This paper highlights these types of ‘forced’ mobility often overshadowed by the humanitarian focus on internally displaced population.
Almamy Sylla (Université des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako (ULSHB)
Paper short abstract:
Cette communication explore le nexus entre les imaginaires de mobilités et les stratégies de réinvention en temps de crises au Mali.
Paper long abstract:
On assiste à une invasion de motos dites chinoises au Mali au tournant des années 2000. Jadis utilisées comme un moyen de traversée dans les zones transfrontalières Mali-Burkina-Faso-Cote d’ivoire, les motos, surtout celles dites chinoises, firent leur entrée dans l’écologie urbaine bamakoise comme moyens transport par excellence des personnes et des biens à la fin des années 2010. Cela fait suite à une crise généralisée du chômage des jeunes où la moto est perçue et utilisée par des ruraux en exode à Bamako et des jeunes diplômés sans emploi comme gagne-pain. Au même moment que la moto est utilisée comme une stratégie de survie par des jeunes en quête de mieux-être, elle est aussi bien utilisée par des groupes terroristes, les groupes d’autodéfense, que les forces de défense et de sécurité dans l’expansion de la violence et dans la sécurisation des personnes et de leurs biens au Mali. C’est pour dire que la moto fait de plus en plus partie de l’écologie de la guerre au Mali en proie aux attaques terroristes, djihadistes, indépendantistes et aux déplacements massifs des personnes. Ces usages multiformes de la moto nourrissent des imaginaires de la sécurisation, de la violence et de mieux-être au Mali luttant contre l’insécurité et des crises de mobilité et d’employabilité. Cette communication est nourrie par nos recherches ethnographiques en cours sur les soft infrastructures de la migration et de la mobilité au Mali.
Suvi Lensu (University of Edinburgh Aarhus University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores cross-border sex work from Rwanda to DRC, in the time of the Ebola outbreak in East Congo. In response to heightened immobility, Rwandan women and trans sex workers adopted cosmopolitan practices to safeguard their livelihoods as well as their social and geographical mobility.
Paper long abstract:
While mobility has long been recognised as a crucial survival strategy for livelihoods and security, the past decade has witnessed a notable shift in examining mobility through a more intimate lens and exploring the interplay between macro and micro aspects. Aligned with King and Mai's (2009) proposition of 'the emotional and sexual turn' in mobility studies, this paper investigates cross-border sex work from Rwanda to DRC, transcending its labour-driven motives to delve into the intimate spheres and challenges that come to the forefront during crises. Drawing from a yearlong ethnographic study in 2019 amid the Ebola outbreak in Goma, East Congo, this paper closely tracks the intersecting mobilities of Kigali-based Rwandan women and transgender sex workers, who travelled to Goma every week to engage in the transnational sex industry, shaped by the presence of MONUSCO peacekeepers and the international mining business industry. In response to Ebola prevention measures, tightened customs restrictions, and heightened regional tensions, Rwandan cross-border sex workers adeptly adopted what I have framed as 'cosmopolitan practices' (border tactics, aesthetic labour, sourcery, and transnational reciprocity practices) to safeguard their livelihoods and reaffirm their social agency amidst crises. While existing African border and mobility studies predominantly focus on border communities (Flynn 1997; Raeymaekers and Korf 2013; Nugent 2019), this paper diverges by examining how people distanced from the actual border communities appropriate and thus end up reconfiguring borders as well as social and physical mobility in a more metaphysical sense, far away from their material existence.
Knut Graw (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and University of Leuven)
Paper short abstract:
One of the most striking features of contemporary migration to Europe and elsewhere is the almost complete anonymity of its protagonists. This paper attempts to counter these tendencies by focusing on an individual narrative of migration between West Africa and Europe, dating back to the late 1980s.
Paper long abstract:
One of the most striking features of contemporary migration to Europe and elsewhere is the almost complete anonymity of its protagonists. The most immediate effect of this anonymity has been the emergence of the figure of the ‘migrant’ in public consciousness with little attention for national and personal backgrounds. A related effect of this anonymization of migration has been that, without personal identity, the individuals concerned also seem to have no history, leading to a rather de-historicized view of migration in the public debate. This paper attempts to counter these tendencies by focusing on an individual narrative of migration between West Africa and Europe, dating back to the late 1980s. On a more theoretical plane, by reflecting on an individual account this paper article reflects on the question of voice as one of the most central problems of ethnographic representation, both in migration studies and more generally.
Keywords: Anthropology, migration, dialogue, voice, listening.
Lotte Pelckmans (Copenhagen University)
Paper short abstract:
The long history of small-scale rural to rural displacements in the greater post-slavery Sahel region, will be analysed to demonstrate how different temporalities and spatial opportunities refashion the narrative of displacement as a self-chosen versus forced reality.
Paper long abstract:
This paper focuses on a long history of small-scale rural to rural displacements in West Mali, reflecting similar dynamics in the greater Sahel region, namely displacements motivated by conflicting narratives about the legacies of (descent-based) slavery. In the post-slavery era of the 21st century, self- chosen displacements came about when (formerly) enslaved individuals and/or their families used post-abolition opportunities to carve out and establish their own constituencies, by ‘marooning’ and ‘emplacing’ themselves anew.
Currently, diasporic activism about the legacies of descent-based slavery, has sparked new forms of displacement and emplacement. When post-slavery conflicts over labour, land or marriage alliances get polarised, there is a long history of moving out of the villages in which social status limits the potential for social mobility. Such displacements usually reconfigure new forms of independence in terms of labour and property, that tend to be more difficult to refashion ‘back home’. While such refashioning does not always work out in terms of economic gains, socially speaking, the narratives of some tend to combine ideas of self-realisation and emplacement on places of arrival, notwithstanding strong elements of forced social exclusion in places of departure. Based on (a documentary movie consisting of) interviews with diaspora-based activists and those displaced due to their activism in Western Mali, the paper will demonstrate how different temporalities and spatial opportunities impact on the refashioning of the narrative of displacement as a self-chosen versus externally enforced reality and the different layers alongside this continuum.
Cristiano Lanzano (The Nordic Africa Institute (Uppsala, Sweden))
Paper short abstract:
Migration across the northern border of Ghana remains important, fueled by the expansion of artisanal gold mining. Burkinabe migrant miners to Ghana specialize in cyanide-based processing of tailings: their work is characterized by mobility, economic specialization and technological innovation.
Paper long abstract:
In recent years, the northern border of Ghana has raised concern because of violent incidents and political turmoil in neighboring Burkina Faso, amidst fears that insecurity could spread and escalate existing tensions in northern Ghana. Yet, migration between the two countries has a consolidated history, and Burkinabe (Mossi) presence is visible in the 'zongos' (ethnic neighborhoods) of many Ghanaian cities.
A recent factor contributing to cross-border mobility has been the intensification of artisanal gold mining in both countries. Burkinabe migrant miners to Ghana, in particular, have specialized in cyanide-based processing of mineral tailings and leftovers. Navigating the challenges and restrictions to mobility, travelling between the two countries to buy chemicals, sell gold, invest their profits or simply visiting their families, these miners and technicians are the essential human infrastructure of a geographically dispersed and largely informal supply chain. This paper aims to present the first results of an ongoing work on Burkinabe miners in northern Ghana, focusing on the dynamics of mobility, economic specialization and technological innovation that characterize their work.
Joyce De-Graft Acquah (University of Cape Coast, Ghana, West Africa)
Paper short abstract:
Most refugees chose one of three durable solutions, However, there is a category that chose none and chose to remain refugees indefinitely. At the level of policy and theory, this is a conundrum. This paper focuses on these refugees and investigates their livelihood strategies.
Paper long abstract:
Following the Liberian Civil War in the1990s, thousands of refugees were forced to flee to Ghana. Upon the cessation of hostilities in Liberia, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees presented repatriation, local integration, and resettlement in a third country as the three durable solutions for refugees. Most chose one of these options, but there is a category that chose none and opted to remain refugees. This paper focuses on these refugees.
The study area was the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana and involved 10 refugees, comprising six men and four women. In addition, one interview was conducted with the camp manager.
The study asked two main questions: First, it asks why some Liberian refugees exempted themselves from the cessation of refugee status in order to remain in Ghana as refugees. Secondly, how are they earning a living in Ghana? The study also examined the support these refugees have received from UNHCR and the Ghana Refugee Board in the pursuit of their livelihoods.
The study highlighted a number of structural and agency reasons why respondents have decided to remain refugees. Further, the data shows that though remittance was a form of livelihood, eight respondents were also engaged in some form of economic activity, including construction, trading, and clergy. Though all the respondents had received vocational skill training from state and non-state institutions, none of them utilised this skill as part of their livelihoods. Further, the study shows that apart from one respondent, all of the refugees interviewed earned less than the minimum wage in Ghana.