Paper short abstract:

This paper traces the migratory patterns of professional nurses, finding what began as a slow-moving eddy in the colonial period changed to a transcontinental circuit c.independence, a northward flood during the civil war, and back to an eddy, but one propelled by different winds.

Paper long abstract:

The visually striking uniforms worn by nursing and midwifery staff and students in Freetown's hospitals and clinics reflect an elaborate system of color-coded ranking and identification mandated by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. The uniforms are complemented by a range of accessories, some (starched white caps, elaborate metal scrollwork belts) appearing to come straight out of Victorian England and others (scrubbable rubber shoes, upside-down timepieces worn on the lapel) representing the latest innovations in clinical attire. Like the education, training and status with which it is associated, the uniform must be composed. The 21st century nurse's uniform is a semiotic bricolage, combining African and European elements from past and present in a material form that conveys a nurse's place in the administrative hierarchy instantly. In the same way that obtaining the elements necessary to compose and embellish a standard uniform involves navigating multiple distinct and guarded bodies of social, scientific, and geographic knowledge, wearing the uniform demonstrates mastery of the system. In this paper I demonstrate how generations of nurses in Freetown have leveraged social capital to achieve the mobility professional nursing affords; yet along the way the meaning of mobility has been contested by the very educated cosmopolitans it produced. Through a comparative analysis of material objects, I explore the tension between social and geographic mobilities, demonstrating how the trajectory of migration amongst members of the Sierra Leonean nursing profession once followed, then disrupted, and finally subverted the efforts of colonial and post-colonial policies designed to circumscribe it.