Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the emerging transatlantic migration flow between Senegal and Argentina. It shows how the Senegalese migrants manoeuvre between different structures of constraints and possibilities in a new geographical context.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years it has become exceedingly difficult for African migrants to enter the Global North. The EU and its member states have made further restrictions on national asylum and migration policies and have de facto outsourced its border control by collaborating with transit migration countries in Africa. At the same time in Argentina, a country with no direct diplomatic or economic links to Senegal, the stock of Senegalese asylum seekers and irregular migrants has risen since the 2000s. When the opportunities to enter Europe diminish it seems that new routes towards less developed economies appear.

In this paper we examine the recent flow of Senegalese migrants to Argentina. By focusing on the interactions between the migrants, civil society and the Argentinean State we explore how this new group of migrants seek to create new spaces of mobility and recognition. The paper presents an empirically-grounded discussion of how the migrants manoeuvre in the new geographical context. It draws special attention to their attempt to get recognised legally by the Argentinean State, a process witch reached a peak in 2013, when a new regularization regime for irregular Senegalese was introduced.

The analysis is based on empirical material collected through ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with Senegalese migrants in Buenos Aires.