Paper short abstract:

My paper analyzes how former slaves used migration and diasporic practices to rebuild autonomous communities and social networks in Mali and Senegal from the end of the 19th century.

Paper long abstract:

West Africa experienced extensive warfare and enslavement in the second half of the nineteenth century. Populations were scattered along the main slave trade routes in Western Sudan. This article analyzes how former slaves used migration and diasporic practices to rebuild autonomous communities and social networks, and to overcome legacies of slavery away from their region of origin. This entailed renegotiations of kinship, marriage and religious practices in the Kayes region (Mali) and the Siin (Senegal) where 'othering' and vulnerability were deeply rooted in the history of slavery.

Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the West African institution of the Zongo, I will discuss the socio-political networks that historically exist between different Zongos, and the role played by “Zongo people” in the contemporary production of identities, memories and stereotypes about mobility and migration.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims at reconsider the position of migrants in the local narratives and in the public space from a West African perspective.

The institution of Zongo was born before the colonisation and originates from trade necessities. It identifies the areas or the fringes of towns where traders - at the beginning especially Hausa coming from present-day northern Nigeria - would stop to rest and manage their own trade. These settlements are still present in modern West African countries, and still represent places inhabited by "strangers", often identified with Islam, the religion followed by the majority of Hausa traders. Contemporary Zongos are frequently characterized by overcrowding and inadequate sanitation, and stand for, both symbolically and practically, a condition which exist between inclusion and exclusion. The institution itself is an attempt to include and regulate the presence of migrants and strangers in the host communities, where all the actors involved are constantly negotiating their own socio-political position and their own rights.

Combining an ongoing anthropological fieldwork and archival research on Zongo networks in Ghana and Togo, I will address the value of Zongo experience through history in reconfiguring the social meaning of being a migrant. I will eventually develop hypothesis about contemporary migrants' political and social role in the society, while markets, trade and mobility will be discussed as crucial aspects in determining migration trajectories and nodes of identity production.

Paper short abstract:

This communication focuses to practices and imaginaries of Thiaroye camp in Senegal generated by the arrival of migrant-soldiers between 1910 and 1960. This memory among some of populations of the nearby village of Thiaroye-sur-mer explains in part the construction of a discourse on allochthony

Paper long abstract:

The name of Thiaroye resonates today as a symbol of colonial oppression. Because the military camp was the scene of a bloody crackdown of "Tirailleurs Sénégalais" on December 1, 1944, this name was registered as a site of memory in Senegal and in various areas in West Africa and the diaspora, through cultural works or memorial policies. However, the military camp was established in 1910 and still in operation today, was a place of life throughout the colonial period involving militaries of all Africa under French domination. Thiaroye camp was the largest camp of colonial soldiers in the French Empire, he gathered "Tirailleurs" for military service or because they were in transit, outbound or return to other metropolitan areas and Colonial, especially those in war. This space has allowed for more than fifty years of encounters between soldiers-migrants from various circles of the sub-region with the inhabitants of the villages on the coast of Dakar region, especially of Thiaroye-sur-mer. These interactions have generated various social practices - some were considered as stigmatisanes like the consomation of alcohol and prostitution. This paper will question the construction of a discourse on allochthony in urban context since the early 20th century in the memory what have people of Thiaroye-sur-mer having known these African migrants military, as well as a work in the colonial archives.

Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relation between the scholarly discourse on Cape Verdean contract workers in colonial São Tomé e Principé and the memories of one of these contract workers. Key themes are colonial and postcolonial identities, movements and money.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on the memories of Senhor Fernando, an elderly Cape Verdean man who in the 1950s was contracted by the Portuguese colonial authorities to work on plantations in São Tomé and Príncipe. In scholarly discourse on Cape Verdean plantation workers, two themes are salient. Firstly, many researchers underline the slavery-like conditions for the labourers on the plantations. Secondly, they point to the tense relationship between the Cape Verdeans and other plantation workers who originated from mainland African Portuguese colonies, and they argue that these tensions had to do with the somewhat higher status of the Cape Verdeans relative to other colonial subjects. In contrast to this image of oppression and conflict, Senhor Fernando paints a relatively positive picture of his distant years in São Tomé and Príncipe.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relation between Senhor Fernando's story and the scholarly discourse. Key themes in Senhor Fernando's story are colonial identities, the importance of geographical movements and the significance of money, and I will contextualize these themes through an inquiry into Cape Verdean colonial and post-colonial constructions of race, the national culture of migration and the history of suffering. Furthermore I will discuss how Senhor Fernando's narrative is informed by his position in contemporary Cape Verdean society as well as in his family. In doing this, I intend to show that this individual story and the scholarly discourse, which on the surface seem to be totally opposite narratives, actually converge on important points.

Paper short abstract:

Memories and recollections of early international migrants of the Gambia River show the intersection between diasporas and the nationalist struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, and unveil the longer historical dynamics behind contemporary West African migrations to Europe.

Paper long abstract:

This essay discusses the social trajectory of a generation of rural Gambian men that reached other African countries and Europe in the 1950s and early 1960s. Some were students in search of further education. Some others yearned for adventure and money in the diamond economies of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo Brazaville and Kinshasa. All of them were seeking social emancipation from the restraints of village life and the joke of colonial rule at a time in which the colonial state was promoting innovation and change. After years of travels, many of these migrants resettled at home and tried to carve out a niche in the rapidly changing and economic deteriorating set up of independent Gambia. Their recollections are key to an in-depth understanding of a crucial phase in the history of West Africa, which in the late 1950s and 1960s saw nationalist struggles and the achievement of independence intersecting with the first waves of international diasporas. In a broader perspective, this essay reminds analysts of West African migrations to address the geographical and social immobility of contemporary West African youths in light of the social memories of two or even three generations of returnees, whose experiences abroad strongly influenced the development of their home countries.

Paper short abstract:

My paper will show how diaspora memories of the Zanzibari revolution of 1964 contest the official version of the revolution by trying to delegitimize a revolution that is perceived as an illegitimate invasion of "outsiders".

Paper long abstract:

The Zanzibari revolution of 1964 can be seen as the major break in recent Zanzibari history. It ended the Sultan's rule over the Eastern African coast and put an end to Zanzibari independence from the mainland, as it brought into being the nation-state of Tanzania in the form of a merger between mainland Tanganyika and the islands of Zanzibar. It also, however, resulted in a significant death toll and a general change of migration patterns due to the forced or chosen exile of an estimated 100,000 Zanzibaris.

I will show how Zanzibari exiles appropriated, reproduced and transformed the on Eastern African coast well-known narrative of civilization and barbarity once more in its long history. I thus aim to portray in three different parts (homeland, Zivilisationsbruch, and crusade against Islam) the ways the exiles of the Zanzibari revolution remember their former homeland, the revolution, and the ,other', that is, the political enemy who embodies the dark side of their civilization.

These memories are not only shaped by the above mentioned narrative, but also, by their exile situation, by the loss of their homeland and networks, and by the traumatic experience of revolutionary violence itself. This paper mainly focuses on memories in form of autobiographies of first generation exiles, who eye-witnessed the revolution or were even political actors of the time. The accounts clearly challenge the official interpretation of the revolution and attempt to place the events of 1964 in the wider discourse of "Zivilisationsbruch" and world conspiracy against Islam.

Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork carried out with forced migrants from southern Somalia to Tanzania I shall show how memories of past events get newly gendered features thanks to the loss of meanings in the Zigula v. Swahili translations

Paper long abstract:

Forced migrations, either present or of the past, imply a process of constructing and modifying versions of the past events which become codified in memories. A number of factors interact in this process, some aspects are silenced and others are emphasized, and new events may be invented. One of the arguments I made in the past is that, along the way, the memories of the past, especially if gathered and codified by writing them down, may lose a number of meanings that are unknown to people who codify them. Matriliny has been one aspect that has not been recognized or emphasized by those who codified certain traditions of migrations at specific historical times.

I this paper I shall show that in the process of seeking adaptation to Tanzania after forced migration occurred in 1992 from the war in Somalia some changes in the memories of the past have occurred. Particularly I shall highlight how the Swahili language, as a language where gender is not marked by prefixes or suffixes, plays its role in the newly featured memories of the past and a male discourse becomes dominant.

Paper short abstract:

Memories migrate together with the people who carry them. Migrants’ long journeys confront long-held memories of past contacts both among the migrants’ themselves and the people amidst whom they live, work or happen to reside.

Paper long abstract:

Long Journeys, African Migrants on the Road is the title of a volume Robert McKenzie and I co-edited for Brill which will appear in the Spring of 2013. The volume focuses on migrants' narratives of their own migratory process or project , most narratives being uttered and recorded on the road, on the places of transit and temporary, residence. Throughout, the impact of accumulated individual and social memory of migration impacts with the migrants' own narratives and those of the people among whom they live, work or happen to reside. Particular care and sense of responsibility, surrounds the recording of such migrant testimonies as they offer precious insights on the making and unmaking of human memory, and on its shifting representations of migration according to different time and place. Migrant memories are testimonies where what is to be challenged is not the validity of the testimony itself, but the ability to provide the kind of listening context which is necessary to receive, in A. Sayad's terms, what continues to be at the perilous junction between the sacred and the prohibited.

Paper short abstract:

This paper offers an account of the experience of South African migrants and refugees in Botswana during the apartheid era. By discussing their life histories, this work aims to show how memory has shaped migrants’ and refugees’ identity and the way they related to the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ country.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this presentation is to discuss the role of memory in shaping and transforming migrants and refugees' dual identity and 'sense of home'. Since the late 1950s until 1994 during the apartheid era thousands of South Africans left their country to move abroad. For many refugees and migrants, the neighbouring country of Botswana was a corridor towards other African territories or overseas states; for some, Botswana would become a permanent solution and a new home. Having lived and integrated in the new country for a number of decades, former refugees and migrants ended up developing a dual sense of identity, towards Botswana and towards South Africa, as well as a dual sense of belonging. Memory also contributed to the development of this dual attachment towards the country where they were born, as well as the country where they have lived most of their lives. Memory therefore becomes the means through which retaining a connection with the country of origin, connection that is built on the basis of kinship ties (relatives still living there), feelings of affection (having South African identity and home) and transnational links (frequent trips back and forth between the two countries for different reasons). But memory also helped former migrants and refugees to establish networks and a sense of community, especially during the years of apartheid. The identities of refugees and migrants bound them within solidarity ties in the name of the common struggle against discrimination.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores abjection through an ethnographic lens focused on the post-conflict existence of former migrants returned to urban Burkina Faso from Côte d’Ivoire in response to the 2002 Ivoirian civil war.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores abjection through an ethnographic lens focused on the post-conflict existence of former migrants returned to Burkina Faso from Côte d'Ivoire in response to the 2002 Ivoirian civil war. Abjection is present in multiple forms in the contemporary lived experiences of this population. For instance, repatriates resist categorization and are outside an existing symbolic order in which the "returned migrant" is a nationally known figure, while the "refugee" is an internationally recognized one. The categories—"returned migrant" and "refugee"—from which repatriates are excluded speak to continuities between the colonial and post-colonial and especially when considering the Ivoirian civil war. Its eruption 42 years after independence, the Ivoirian civil war has been considered a latent manifestation of a post-colonial quest for national identity in which the post-colonial is not so much a chronological marker, rather it is ideologically invoked and therefore central to this national project. Although their historic investment in Côte d'Ivoire is significant, Burkinabé migrants are not just excluded from this Ivoirian enterprise, but vital to its realization through their literal and figurative excision. Many in retrospect view the promise migration to Côte d'Ivoire once offered them as illusory (i.e., never existing) or representative of a bygone era in which the present is characterized by a definitive "global disconnect." Return prompted the creation of new subjectivities that despite their deployment to secure material resources remain marginal and illegible, while identification with the repatriate label ten years on speaks to an uncanny "nostalgia for the future."

Paper short abstract:

In protracted refugee settings, recollections of the past are differentiated by age, gender and other forms of difference. This paper explores how aspiration and action were linked for one refugee group, showing the importance of local realities to narratives of forced migration and future goals.

Paper long abstract:

Displacement inevitably creates uncertainty. When exile becomes protracted, the question of how best to understand and manage uncertainty and strategize for the present and future, is compounded. Forced migrants' individual and collective interpretations, expectations and aspirations change over time, and experiences vary considerably within and between 'communities' or groups. At stake is every aspect of peoples' lives including personal and collective social and other identities, livelihood and subsistence activities, and leadership and authority structures. It is likely that some contest over the meaning of forced migration experiences and their implications for group members will be observable.

Based on ethnographic research with conflict generated Sudanese Acholi refugee populations in Uganda over more than a decade, this paper explores the way in which dramatic changes in personal circumstances led to a number of dilemmas relating to the management of social transformation for members of this refugee group. It argues that while displacement brought change and uncertainty to all, for different individuals this was experienced negatively in terms of losses of various kinds, or positively in terms of new opportunities, aspirations and activities. Competing interpretations of the visible changes in behaviour and social process within this refugee group are found to connect to distinct aspirations and goals. Analysis of differentiated communities or groups is therefore a pre-requisite in order to achieve insights into the ways in which the social changes often associated with forced migration also connect to other contextual and explanatory factors.