Paper short abstract:

The paper comes from a study in an area of the northern Benin severely marked by ecological decline. It looks at emigrants and their corresponding shifts in care arrangements and the assignment of economic responsibility, according to perceptions of upcoming environmental crisis or abundance.

Paper long abstract:

There has been growing attention to the impacts on human populations of environmental change and degradation, including sharp increases in those termed "environmental migrants" or "environmental refugees". Migrants may try to distribute their migrating members along particular kinship, gendered or legal lines, creating what one might call, 'trans-climate families.' This paper comes from a study in an area of the northern Benin that has been severely marked by ecological decline. It will look at Bielabe groups who undertake marriage journeys (emigration and far displacement) after requiring divine instruction and several rituals. As an illustration, from the 1960s, many of the endogamous marriages arranged by elders consisted of exchanges of sisters between boys (Kiansi, 1993). To keep these demands by ritual leaders and seniors at bay, a number of immigrants have gone to live elsewhere in the neighbouring countries (in Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Togo). Others have moved further south in the country, beyond the immediate control of the family's local spiritual and economic authorities. This paper focuses on a comparison between of Beninese emigrants and other African nationals now settled in Northern Benin, in the Atakora area, who appear to be trying to balance the social demands and environmental risks with which they are confronted, while also sustaining long distance care arrangements to support dependent family back home. Families may even begin to press their members toward attempting to attain legal status in particular regions, to try to retain access to places of relative environmental stability and diversity.