The conceptual limits of the ‘migration journey’. De-exceptionalising mobility in the context of West African trajectories

Abstract

The 'migration journey' has proven to be a fruitful lens to question the simplistic notion that the outcome of migration solely depends on a momentous go/no-go decision in the countries of origin. At the same time, we argue that the normative/sedentarist principles of migration studies produce the risk to approach the journey as an exceptional phase of mobility, in-between presumed place-based lives. This paper therefore aims to explore the conceptual limits of the migration journey literature. To challenge the notion that the migration journey is fundamentally different from pre-and postmigratory mobilities, we combine two empirical research projects that have followed the im/mobility trajectories of West Africans. The first project focuses on the trajectories of itinerant gold miners within West Africa, the second concentrates on the im/ mobility of West Africans within Europe. By juxtaposing the empirical insights of these seemingly different contexts, we stress the need to embed migratory movements in a continuous field of mobility practices across spaces in Africa and Europe. This results in our plea for a research agenda that does not see 'migrancy' as a pre-given marker of difference, but as a normative artefact of mobility regimes.

Migration trajectories and transnational support within and beyond Europe

“…Experiences collected during these journeys do have an impact on how these migrants integrate in subsequent countries of settlement. Moreover, as Schapendonk, Dahinden, and Bolay (2020) argue, this sedentarist perspective results from the ingrained tendency, even in migration research, to see immobility as the norm and mobility as the exception which needs explanation.…”

“…Migration trajectories are an emergent research topic in the quest of concepts that correspond theoretical debates with migrant realities. We begin with providing a short description of how we understand migration journeys, trajectories and routes, following the definitions of Schapendonk, Bolay and Dahinden (2020). Migration journeys are the specific cross-border travels of migrants, whereas migration trajectories is a broader concept and may include multiple journeys in various directions over a longer period of time, including possible longer periods of residence in a country before people decide to move on.…”

Disentangling Mining and Migratory Routes in West Africa: Decisions to Move in Migranticised Settings

“…Although there is a recent trend to overcome certain epistemological separations through the use of reflexivity (Dahinden, 2016) and mobility-based approaches (e.g., Moret, 2018;Schapendonk, 2020;Schapendonk, Bolay, & Dahinden, 2020), studies on mobility and migration in and from Africa often demonstrate an epistemological ambiguity inherent in the decoupling of approaches by researchers rooted either in livelihoods and development research or in migration research. It is, for example, revealing that cross-border movements within the region tend to be labelled as mobile livelihoods and labour mobility (e.g., d 'Errico & Di Giuseppe, 2018), while cross-border movements across the Sahara and beyond tend to be labelled as international migration (Adepoju, 2006).…”

“…From the point of view of the trajectory of African men on the move, these different forms of mobility are likely to intermingle and overlap with one another without following a precise roadmap. Consequently, these routes can hardly be captured through concepts such as the 'migratory journey' with supposedly well-separated phases of preparation, travel, transit, arrival and settlement (see Schapendonk et al, 2020). The approach to the mobility trajectories adopted in this article is therefore better suited, as it leaves more room for notions such as incoherence (Massa, 2018) or chance (Gladkova & Mazzucato, 2017), to show that cross-border mobility within and outside Africa does not necessarily result from a migration project, nor is it necessarily conceived as 'migration' by those undertaking those cross-border movements.…”

“…These relations of social and financial indebtedness blur the notions of "voluntary or autonomous choice" in migration decision-making (O'Connell Davidson, 2013, p. 177). While this has been well-documented at the presumed 'departure stage' (e.g., Konseiga, 2007), people on the move are in fact continuously engaged in 'network work' (Schapendonk et al, 2020) imbued with moralities of exchange and dependency to gain support along the way, thus contributing to shape their future movement possibilities. Finally, the European discharge of part of its migration control and repression apparatus to African states and international organisations (Andersson, 2014;Brachet, 2016) has been accompanied by an increase in legal and illegal practices of detention (cf.…”