Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with how returnees perceive the (il)legitimacy of certain capitalist logics embedded in The Gambia's Migrants as Messengers sensitisation project, constituting what we call a moral economy of voice.

Paper long abstract:

Returnees share their experiences of migration in awareness-raising campaigns. While recognising these campaigns’ industrialisation, the literature has approached their ‘politics of voice’, entailing the bending of migrant stories for migration control. To understand how these bent stories are commodified, we relate the notions of politics of voice and moral economy, foregrounding the normative clashes engendered by returnees’ perception of the (il)legitimacy of certain capitalist logics in the industry of awareness-raising. Through the analytical lens we call ‘moral economy of voice’, we scrutinised data arising from our ethnographic study of the Migrants as Messengers (MaM) project run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in The Gambia since 2019. This analysis highlighted three constituting aspects of the moral economy of voice, namely returnees’ grievance for being cast as voluntary workers by IOM; resentment at the product of their work being appropriated by third parties; and opposition to IOM’s conditional support to their independent communication. Our analysis shows that the commodification mechanisms of returnee stories are as contentious as their discursive bending. In the light of this, we advocate that any sort of engagement offered the returnees stand on fair grounds and allow them to express their stories’ full extent.