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.