Paper short abstract:

On the basis of a long-standing ethnographic involvement with transnational mobility between Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire, this paper illustrates the ways in which idioms of kinship serve as a central currency for facilitating labour migration and other moves in this region.

Paper long abstract:

When generations of labour migrants create and uphold transnational connections, it is often understood to be a family affair. Pioneers send for their children, or pave the way for parents, siblings and more distant relatives, and transnational spaces are maintained through the similar aspirations and trajectories of new generations of migrants. What is less understood is how flexible notions of kinship may be in these contexts. On the basis of a long-standing ethnographic involvement with transnational mobility between Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire, this paper illustrates the ways in which idioms of kinship serve as a central currency for facilitating labour migration and other moves in this region.

The analysis emphasises historical continuities in labour mobility between these two countries, vested in local ideals of hospitality and solidarity through the institution of the tutorat in Côte d'Ivoire, as well as the ruptures in these social contracts through the past two decades of political and armed conflict. Conceptually, the paper suggests that the evocation of transnational kinship ties represents a strategy to create a singular transnational space, rather than to maintain connections between separate localities. The paper thus adds to the emerging literature on migration brokers, by ascribing these kinship-like ties a pivotal role in facilitating the continued mobility within a transnational space. The argument thereby aligns with the panel's focus on the theoretical relevance of mobility studies for African studies, or vice versa, by analysing kinship idioms as a central social currency in structuring transnational mobility across space and time.