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.