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.