Editorial: Memorias y migraciones en África Occidental y Francia

This article is an attempt to reconsider the representations that, in Senegal in the 2000s, linked the social history of the tirailleurs (African colonial soldiers) with the practical and symbolic processes at the heart of a number of migratory projects, especially among young people. The history of this social military body was rooted in almost a century of colonial domination, from 1857 to 1962. The tirailleurs played a part in all the battles of the French army and generated different kinds of social imaginaries that were woven between France and Africa. In the late 1950s, another figure, another ideal type, became established in the Senegalese public space: the migrant. After tracing the history of the way in which these two figures were constructed, I trace how, more recently, the younger generation has been able to mobilize the dominant memory of the tirailleur in its own aspirations of exile. Some preliminary methodological proposals will be needed to account for these migratory imaginaries.

Section: Blood Debt and The Grandsons Of Tirailleursmentioning

confidence: 99%

African colonial soldiers, memories and imagining migration in Senegal in the twenty-first century

Mourre¹

2018

“…Each produces a different narrative, although their primary idioms (Monson 2000: 360) remain the same. Even if these communities are commonly labelled as belonging to a specific ethnic group (Hausa and Mossi in this case), their composition is far from homogeneous, a fact that is reflected in the vast majority of migration experiences (Rodet and Reinprecht 2013: 11). Both Zongos are inhabited by a multitude of people, and although this calls for different social and ethnic definitions, these people can be seen as participating in the construction of a common identity process.…”

Section: Introduction: Why the Zongo?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration networks and narratives in Ghana: a case study from the Zongo

Casentini¹

2018

The historical presence of Zongo communities in contemporary Ghana is analysed through archival documents and ethnography, with the aim of highlighting their social and political value as migrant communities, and their possible inclusion in the urban strategy of the country. Zongos have been present in Ghana since precolonial and colonial times, depending on specific cases, and are historically connected to the presence of Muslim trade communities in the market areas of various urban settlements. I argue that their role in the Ghanaian socio-political landscape goes beyond this common definition: Zongos act as interlocutors between the urban centre and peripheral rural areas, and they have a potentially effective role in dealing with migrant flows. Zongo people elaborate their memory of migration in particular ways, revealing both an inherent mode of producing a common group identity, and a conscious strategy of inclusion in the contemporary political dynamics of Ghana.

“…Indeed, populations along the railway had developed enduring intergenerational and translocal links between Mali and Senegal, with people regularly travelling back and forth between regions along the railway (Rodet 2008). They shaped translocal communities through specific remembering of ‘home’ and ‘homeland’ (indeed, in ‘remembering’, one can find ‘member’; see Rodet and Reinprecht 2013). 2…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Old homes and new homelands: imagining the nation and remembering expulsion in the wake of the Mali Federation's collapse

Rodet¹,

County²

2018

Self Cite

This article examines concepts of ‘home’ and ‘abroad’ for migrants and citizens in the twilight of empire. It focuses on the ‘cheminots refoulés’, railway workers with origins in the former French Sudan (today's Republic of Mali) who were expelled from Senegal shortly after both territories declared independence, and other ‘Sudanese’ settled in Senegal, sometimes for several generations. Using newly available archives in France, Mali and Senegal, and interviews with former cheminots and ‘Sudanese migrants’ on both sides of the border, this article seeks to historicize memories of autochthony and allochthony that have been constructed and contested in postcolonial nation-building projects. The Mali Federation carried the lingering memory of federalist political projects, but it proved untenable only months after the Federation's June 1960 independence from France. When member states declared independence from each other, the internal boundary between Senegal and the Sudanese Republic became an international border between Senegal and the Republic of Mali. In the wake of the collapse, politicians in Bamako and Dakar clamoured to redefine the ‘nation’ and its ‘nationals’ through selective remembering. Thousands of cheminots and ‘Sudanese migrants’ who had moved to Senegal from Sudan years (or decades) earlier were suddenly labelled ‘foreigners’ and ‘expatriates’ and faced two governments eager to see them ‘return’ to a hastily proclaimed nation state. This ‘repatriation’ allowed Republic of Mali officials to ‘perform the nation’ by (re)integrating and (re)membering the migrants in a nascent ‘homeland’. But, having circulated between Senegal and Sudan/Mali for decades, ‘Sudanese migrants’ in both states retained and invoked memories of older political communities, upsetting new national priorities. The loss of the Mali Federation raises questions about local, national and international citizenship and movement in mid-century West Africa. Examining the histories invoked to imagine postcolonial political communities, this article offers an insight into the role that memory has played in constructing and contesting the nation's central place in migration histories within Africa and beyond.