Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the implementation of migration policies in Senegal, and especially on the role of migrant returnees in internationally funded campaigns that aim to help locals make "informed mobility decisions".

Paper long abstract:

In Senegal, one of the primary migration sending countries of West Africa, the implementation of migration policies often entails the involvement of external actors, such as the International Organisation for Migration or internationally funded NGOs. In an effort to combat irregular migration, these organisations often employ migrant returnees, who are meant to share their migration stories with local communities and help locals make ‘informed mobility decisions’. As such, migrant returnees carry the double responsibility of representing the interests of their compatriots as well as those of the international organisations they work for. In this complex role, they have some room of discretion in terms of the specific information they share as well as the migration message that locals ultimately receive.

This research examines how ‘migrant messengers’ negotiate and tackle these conflicting role expectations and, in turn, what that means for policy outcomes. The findings build on (i) 10 interviews with migrant returnees employed either by the IOM’s campaign of ‘Migrants as Messengers’ or by bilaterally funded similar local initiatives, and (ii) 10 interviews with allegedly ‘less successful’ migrant returnees, who either hide their migration experience or only share it informally within their own communities and networks. Analysing when and how migrant returnees become involved in externally funded migration management efforts in Senegal, this study contributes to the literatures of street-level bureaucracy and representative bureaucracy. It also addresses how migration policies are being implemented in practice and how knowledge on migration decisions is produced locally.

Paper short abstract:

This paper engages with migrants who returned to Guinea and Senegal. It analyses returnees' justifications for return and their reintegration in a hostile return environment by highlighting how they navigate between their justification for return and the negative social perception of returnees.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past few years, we witness a growing European policy commitment in return migration as a suitable tool for reducing immigration rates and as a means of developing migrants’ countries of origin. This positive policy discourse on return migration in Europe, however, stays in sharp contrast to the public perception of return in West Africa. Here, a return is habitually viewed as the opposite of a successful life, and returnees often face social disproval, even more if they had secured status and carriers abroad. This paper engages with experiences of migrants who returned. First, it emphasises on migrants’ personal justifications for return. Second, we illustrate returnees’ reintegration processes in this hostile return environment by highlighting how they navigate between their justifications for return and the negative social perception of returnees.

The paper draws from ethnographic data collected amongst assisted and non-assisted return migrants within the scope of the project “Gender, Return Migration and Reintegration in Gambia, Guinea and Senegal”, funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies.

Our findings show a variety of justifications for return. Among these are the urge ‘to create something’, or the desire of ‘being part of the society again’, especially after having experienced social exclusion in the host countries. Returnees also expressed strong disillusions about Europe and its proclaimed values. However, returnees face diverse setbacks and adversities in their reintegration processes. These experiences make it difficult for them to maintain their justifications for return as counter narrative over time.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on two research projects with youth transnationally mobile between Europe and West Africa, this paper argues that youthful transnational engagements – particularly those mediated through digital technologies – deserve further study and outlines an agenda for future research in this area.

Paper long abstract:

Among African diaspora communities in Europe, there are significant numbers of young people who are engaged in circulatory and complex mobility patterns, including leisure mobilities and educational sojourns to the ‘homeland’. Yet the lives, mobilities, and sensibilities of young people are little considered due to a focus on ‘crisis narratives’ around African migration and adult-centric bias in previous research. Drawing on two research projects with transnationally mobile young Belgian-Ghanaians and British-Nigerians, this paper aims to put young people’s transnational engagements and mobilities central by focusing on a ubiquitous and powerful, yet mostly ‘hidden’ factor in migration scholarship: digital technology and social media. We demonstrate the importance of digital media in the lives of young people who grow up between diaspora and ‘homeland’ and who forge their own distinct relationships to their countries of heritage. Digital media (or the absence of it) mediates young people’s transnational engagements in varied, embodied and affectively powerful ways. In some instances, young people’s leisure, pleasure, and independence is enabled by technology, in other instances, constraints on digital media are central to intergenerational contestation over morality, belonging and education. Crucially, digital media is an arena (as both tool and shared interest) in which diaspora youth forge new peer relationships in the ‘homeland’. Furthermore, analysis of digital media and return mobilities illuminates the emergence and negotiation of new transnational subjectivities and imagined futures. Overall, the paper argues that these youthful, digital, transnational engagements deserve further study, and suggests an agenda for future research in this area.

Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that Afropolitan experiences show the growth of the diverse African community. Although the experiences of Afropolitans do not represent the larger African migrant experience, their stories must be told to correct and challenge Western stereotypical narrative of African migrants.

Paper long abstract:

A monolithic representation is usually given to African migration. African migrants are depicted as fleeing from wars, unrest, famine, disease, poverty, and failed governments, making their journey to the West through dangerous deserts and using rubber boats to cross the Mediterranean Sea with the hopes of seeking greener pastures in Europe. Although this depiction is a fact, it denies the experiences of other Africans who migrate to the West to pursue education and/or jobs. Some Africans are second/third-generation travellers who create a space for themselves in their host land and homeland. This paper argues that Afropolitans/transnationals whose experiences differ slightly from first-generation travellers show the growth of the diverse African community. Although the experiences of Afropolitans do not represent the larger African migrant experience, their stories must be told to correct and challenge the existing Western stereotypical narrative of African migrants. Sefi Atta, the Nigerian-American writer, creates characters who are questioning stereotypical African migrant representation and images of Africa. In A Bit of Difference, the author highlights western narratives of Africa and what it means to be African, juxtaposing it with the lives of her characters, consequently showing the disparity between the Western perception of Africa and reality. Afropolitanism is perhaps legitimising the experiences of the new group of African travellers as part of the collective African experience and identity. As a result, Afropolitanism should be seen as an aspect of the progression of the African migratory narrative.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores Gambian migrant women’s hidden narratives of willing return to The Gambia. It is argued that narratives of migration and return are key to how we see and position The Gambia - in the past, present and future - as in and of this world rather than marginal and peripheral to it.

Paper long abstract:

The afterlives of colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade are manifested in border regimes, migratory classifications and the creation of certain types of (racialised) subjects. I maintain that a focus on ‘irregular’ migrants, and those who migrate for survival, has been privileged at the expense of research on other types of migrants, many of whom migrate for education, work and personal ambition, and are engaged in circular migration. This paper counters dominant tropes by ethnographically exploring Gambian migrant women’s hidden narratives of willing return to The Gambia, and the mutually constitutive relationship between The Gambia, Europe and elsewhere in the development of their careers. With a focus on the political possibilities that the concept of return produces, it is argued that narratives of migration and return are key to how we see and position The Gambia - in the past, present and future - as in and of this world rather than marginal and peripheral to it. In so doing, we provincialize Europe and deprovincialize The Gambia.

Paper short abstract:

'Alinacha’s Dream' narrates Bori’s journey to Europe and back to Africa. By highlighting the process of co-creating a book, especially its moments of friction, this paper presents two counter narratives: (1) Bori’s personal narrative and (2) a call to advocate for counter epistemological practices.

Paper long abstract:

Alinacha’s Dream is the story a Tanzanian man growing up in the slums of Dar es Salaam and his dream of emigrating to Europe. Written in the first person, the book narrates Bori’s journey and his quest of fulfilling personal ambitions. It is also a narrative of return to Tanzania. Taking an (auto)biographical approach, the story allows for a personal narrative peppered with vivid details. By sharing his story, Bori hopes to educate African youth to make informed choices before enrolling on perilous journeys. The proposed paper, however, does not focus on the story itself, but on the process behind it, i.e. co-editing and co-creating a book; and, in particular, on its moments of friction. By pinpointing obstacles, the epistemic landscape is questioned. Established epistemological practices are challenged. A reflection on the process takes a critical look at the coloniality of knowledge production. Because revealing, friction is seen as productive, it takes place at different levels. First, on an interpersonal level, the different positionalities and underlying hierarchies of the co-creators play out during negotiations about the book. Second, friction arises in discussions about the value of counternarratives published in alternative formats as academic output. This leads to reflections on the ontology of knowledge creation (instead of production), its practices, and the role of scholars in a decolonial and engaged academy. As such, the paper deals with two counternarratives: the first is based on Bori’s personal narrative of migration, the second advocates for counter epistemological practices in academia.

Paper short abstract:

This paper contends that entrepreneuring a sense of belonging can be understood as a practice of place-making at the intersection of territoriality and taste-making. The novelty of the paper lies in conceptualizing belonging as an entrepreneurial endeavour that is place-bound yet imaginative.

Paper long abstract:

Where we decide to live and locate our bodies is a political and performative act, especially when the place of conscious dwelling runs counter to conventional narratives of Africa as a continent of migration and displacement. This paper tells the story of a group of Ghanaian returnees choosing to live in Accra, sometimes against all odds, where they develop a sense of home through entrepreneurial projects. Using Accra’s creative industries as a case study, the paper examines these entrepreneurial projects as deliberate practices of place-making in a city that signifies home, but where returnees often feel or are made to feel ‘other’. The paper analyses practices of place-making in Accra’s central district Osu where returnees erect cultural venues and creative hot-spots such as a concept store, an open-air theatre, and a so-called decolonised library. Physical spaces that all, albeit in different ways, cultivate a sense of familiarity and belonging. The analysis is informed by an understanding of entrepreneuring (the verb) as a creative process and societal force (Steyaert 2007; Hjorth and Holt 2022) and of belonging as constantly asserted, negotiated and performed (Bell 1999) yet situated and physically bounded (Anthias 2020). The findings discuss belonging as an entrepreneurially attained endeavour through physical structures that foster translocal diasporic relations and invoke imaginaries of a future Africa. The paper concludes that processes of place-making become performative when returnees affirm their spatial existence mobilizing a narrative of potentiality reminiscent of life in the diaspora and speculative of imagined futures.

Paper short abstract:

By analyzing the migration and return of Kenyan runners and the changing public perceptions of this trend in Kenya, my presentation shows how personal, communal and national identities are redefined to adapt to precarious economic conditions and make room for possibilities of more stable futures.

Paper long abstract:

Moving to study and compete in the USA in the 1970s, Kenyan runners were one of the earliest cohorts of postcolonial African migrants to the USA and Europe. In the 1990s, the nature of migration changed as some Kenyan runners opted to change citizenship and run for other countries. While initially perceived as a betrayal in public discourse, this latter form of migration soon came to be accepted as a pragmatic solution to navigating economic precarity. In both of these migration scenarios, Kenyan runners not only maintained ties with their homes through remittance, they often returned home to settle and build their communities after retiring. In fact, these returning migrants became and are crucial to sustaining the long distance running system of Kenya by leveraging their social and financial capital. My paper, a historical rendering of these migration patterns of Kenyan athletes, considers how the actions of these athletes expose the limits of viewing the migration of Kenyan athletes as a crisis. While the framing of African migration as a crisis often stems from anxieties of the nations to which they move, in this scenario, it is the postcolonial Kenyan nation state that frames it as a crisis. Yet, athletes, through their words and actions, especially, the investment of their winnings in the economy, challenge this perception and assert the congruence of sport migration and patriotism. Through creating new parameters to define good citizenship, they frame Kenyan identity as capacious to accommodate their choice of how to deploy their labor.

Paper short abstract:

The study aims to demonstrate how multimodal forms can be used as a tool for textual instrumentation and to shed light on the shifting and fluid nature of the concepts of homeland, diaspora, and rewritten in the context of diaspora studies.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed paper aims to examine the various means through which diasporas establish connections and express their affinity for their homeland and desire for "return" - both practically and ideationally. The study will focus on how the concepts of "homeland," "diaspora," and "rewritten" are represented in different multimodal forms of musical performance and prose fiction, specifically through an analysis of Beyoncé's musical expression of "diaspora and return" in Black is King and Tomi Adeyemi's fantasy novel, Children of Blood and Bone as examples of representational modes of trauma.

The research approach draws from Cultural Studies and incorporates elements of reader-response theory, Futures Studies, and Manuel Castells' concept of "space of flows" to examine the ways in which space and technology transform the experiences of diaspora and homeland, and how these experiences shape possible, probable, and preferable futures. The study will also examine the fusion of musical genres in critical engagements with fictional works.

Overall, the study aims to demonstrate how multimodal forms can be used as a tool for textual instrumentation and to shed light on the shifting and fluid nature of the concepts of homeland, diaspora, and rewritten in the context of diaspora studies.

Keywords: Diaspora, Homeland, Rewritten, Multimodal