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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MOBILIMA (Mobility in situ: Debating emigration and return in Western Mali)

Teaser

Summary

Today in Europe, debates on migration saturate the public space. But too little is known of how these issues are understood in emigration societies.
MOBILIMA tackle this issue by investigating the local debates around emigration and return in the Western region of Kayes (Mali), which has a long history of sustained involvement in transnational migration. Though this migration and its social effects have been the topic of a wide range of studies, a systematic approach of the local understandings and discussions of these dynamics in a historical perspective is still much needed.
My hypothesis is that societies marked by mobility (since a region such Kayes is not only an emigrant society but a place to which people migrate too) are highly reflective on these dynamics that profoundly affect social structures and individual and collective self-representation.
In this respect, my work notably contributes to a discussion of the notion of a â€œculture of migrationâ€: this idea surfaces in many scholarly work on Soninke migration, and is also widespread among Soninke, migrants or non-migrants. I wish to unpack such a notion: rather than a homogeneous culture of migration, I explore cultural and discursive productions around migration as fields of tensions.
How do family members of former and present migrants, former migrants themselves, non-migrants (some of whom are would-migrants) debate and conceptualize international mobility? What are their own terms, their cultural references, their understandings of the historical dynamics at stake?
The main objectives are:
1) To contribute to the social history of migrants who returned in the 1970s-1980s thus engaging with the scholarly discussions on return migration. This project will document to often-quoted but under-researched experiments: the â€œCoopÃ©rative of Somankidiâ€, a project named after the adjacent village Somankidi-Coura (literally â€œNew Somankidiâ€), which was founded in 1977 by returnees from France of various West African origins; and the Radio Rurale de Kayes (RRK), initiated in 1987 by Italian NGOs, then funded and supported by migrants.
2) To contribute to theoretical discussions on social reproduction in contemporary Africa. How social reproduction is envisioned now that the migratory system that has dominated for decades is in crisis is the primary question I will investigate, asking in what respect migration fits in longer patterns of dependence. This will stem from the analysis of the ways migration is both narrated and memorialized, and notably for the analysis of songs and broadcasts kept at the RRK and covering the late 1980s-early 1990s.
3) To provide a multi-layered account of the key arguments around migration and return in Mali, past and present, and contribute to current academic and public discussions about the visions of Europe emerging from an emigrating area. My research hypothesis is that migration is but one of the socially-sanctioned avenues for social success, and I will analyze the gendered and generational dimensions of these paths as they are locally discussed. This will be done in a third field site, the village Sobokou, an emigrant village also the site of a return in the early 1980s. This ethnographic and historical study will assess the importance of migration in one locale.

Work performed

Based at Point Sud, Centre de recherche sur le savoir local, during two years, I have worked along the following lines.
Firstly, I received a linguistic training in Soninke, the main language around Kayes. Secondly, through fieldtrips to Kayes and its surroundings I investigated the three selcted field sites. Thirdly, in Bamako I conducted archival work and interviews.
Fieldwork has demonstrated the existence of a field of interrelations between the founders of the Cooperative and the founders and workers of the RRK, as well as links with Sobokou. Thus rather than three independent field sites, I have navigated partly within a similar social milieu led my former migrants returned from France, many of which got access to political and associative responsibilities after the political transition (1991-1992). This was important in order of understand the politics of heritagization: return appears as a political and social capital. To better understand these dynamics I have: (1) done a lot of research in archival repositories, mostly in Kayes, to understand these social and political logics and set the histories of the Cooperative and the Radio in a broader perspective; (2) widened the research to other field sites. To move beyond this sphere, I have developed fieldwork with women, and the discovery of women songs on migration has further oriented me towards a gendered-approach of migratory experiences and discourses.

Final results

During the return phase (1 year), I intend to pursue the analysis of the ethnographic, archival and textual material collected.
I will contribute to the social history of the region (with one academic paper on the history of the RRK as linked to mobility and other contributions on return migrations in the 1970s-1980s).
I will develop an analytical framework in order to analyze womenâ€™s songs, and notably songs that celebrate migrants. I will highlight the nuances of these discourses that can get lost with a retrospective gaze.
In a workshop in Bamako and back in France, I will pursue the dynamics of discussions with various actors (associative, activists, institutional) on the issue of migration, and contribute public debates in France and beyond.