Mediating mobility in West Africa

How do African migrants move in contexts where there is little formalized labour migration but increasing border control and restrictive legislation? What facilitates and constrains their migratory trajectories?

In a new article in International Migration Review, senior researchers Nauja Kleist, DIIS, and Jesper Bjarnesen, Nordic Africa Institute, examine these questions in a migration infrastructure perspective, that seeks to analyse how migrants’ mobility is organized and are embedded in a range of different actors and dimensions – from social networks and commercial agencies to technology and different means of transport. As yet, the main focus of this scholarship is on East Asian low-wage labour migration whereas studies from African contexts are scarce. Reviewing existing literature and with insight from their own research on West African migration, Kleist and Bjarnesen offer a new regional and comparative perspective. They show that in contrast to the East Asian cases where legal and commercial actors tend to organize and encapsulate labour migration from beginning to end, much West African migration is less organized by formal actors.  Attention to the role of local hospitality and mentorship as well as practices of improvising mobility, destinations and livelihoods under challenging circumstances is thus important to take into consideration. To further such analysis, the authors suggest a concept of migration infrastructural assemblages with emphasis on shifting constellations and volatility.

‘Mediating Mobility in West Africa’ adds to the growing scholarship that shifts the analytical attention from migrant identities and intentions to what makes migration practically possible – without letting go of migrant perspectives. It is open access.