Invisible Displacements. Between Labour Migration and Forced Displacement in the Burkina Faso-Côte d Ivoire Transnational
The overall objective of this project is to provide an ethnographic analysis of involuntary mobilities that take place outside the purview of state bureaucracies and humanitarian agencies, thereby shifting the focus from the administrative categories of "refugees" and "internally displaced persons" towards ethnographies of invisibly displaced persons.
Whether formally categorized as refugees or not, migrants experience varying degrees of vulnerability and insecurity in relation to their mobilities. Even within families or households, the relative experience of displacement, as well as the implications for livelihood options and prospects for well-being, may differ significantly between individual family members in ways that are generally overlooked.
These dynamics of "internal" experiences of displacement within families or households tend to remain invisible to outside observers as well as to neighbours and even to family members themselves, hidden below the surface of family cohesion and respectability. The dynamics of such processes are difficult to place into generic categories of conventional views, for example of women and children as disenfranchised in relation to adult men. Rather, this project studies the specific processes of empowerment and disempowerment empirically, through in-depth interviews and participant observation, potentially informing humanitarian policy making and broadening the understandings of academic research on forced displacement.
Whether formally categorized as refugees or not, migrants experience varying degrees of vulnerability and insecurity in relation to their mobilities. Even within families or households, the relative experience of displacement, as well as the implications for livelihood options and prospects for well-being, may differ significantly between individual family members in ways that are generally overlooked.
These dynamics of "internal" experiences of displacement within families or households tend to remain invisible to outside observers as well as to neighbours and even to family members themselves, hidden below the surface of family cohesion and respectability. The dynamics of such processes are difficult to place into generic categories of conventional views, for example of women and children as disenfranchised in relation to adult men. Rather, this project studies the specific processes of empowerment and disempowerment empirically, through in-depth interviews and participant observation, potentially informing humanitarian policy making and broadening the understandings of academic research on forced displacement.
Final report
INVISIBLE DISPLACEMENTS
PURPOSE AND ADJUSTMENTS
The overall objective of this project has been to provide an ethnographic analysis of involuntary mobilities that take place outside the purview of state bureaucracies and humanitarian agencies, thereby shifting the focus from the administrative categories of “refugees” and “internally displaced persons” towards ethnographies of invisibly displaced persons. Through ethnographic research in West Africa, this overall interest has been explored through the migration- and settlement histories of Burkinabe labour migrants, displaced from Côte d’Ivoire during the armed conflict 200-2011, as through the narratives and experiences of Burkinabe labour migrants who have remained in Côte d’Ivoire through these turbulent times.
Thematically, the project has remained focused on its initial purpose. The main adjustments to the original research plan have been practical in nature, relating to the changing security situation in this part of West Africa, as will be elaborated in the following section.
IMPLEMENTATION AND SUMMARY
The project has been implemented through a combination of in-depth and wide-ranging literature-based research and empirical field research in Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire. Fieldwork was carried out in southwestern Burkina Faso in June-July 2017 and April 2018, focussing on the narratives of involuntary returnees from Côte d’Ivoire. An additional two-week fieldwork in south-western Côte d’Ivoire was undertaken in September 2019, adding the voices of family members remaining in Côte d’Ivoire during the armed conflict.
Following the escalation of terror attacks in Burkina Faso since 2016, the security situation in both countries has changed significantly since the initiation of the project. I was still able to conduct fieldwork in both countries but given these changes, I opted not to bring my family with me as originally planned, and these factors set limits on the time I could spend in the field. Furthermore, the envisioned field sites in southwestern Burkina Faso were deemed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be a high-risk zone for foreign nationals after the 2016 attack in Ouagadougou and I was not able to conduct fieldwork in these sites.
MAIN RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The three main results of the project consist of 1) theory-building around migrant invisibilisation; 2) empirical and analytical perspectives on urban re-settlement strategies; and 3) theory-building around social network analysis related to regional labour mobility. The first result reflects the initial conceptual framework of the project proposal most explicitly and has been achieved through comprehensive literature-based research on migrant marginalisation. During the second half of 2018, Dr. Anna Baral was employed to assist in this endeavour. This theory-building formed the basis of the edited volume on “Invisibility in African displacements”, set for publication in 2020. This conceptual work will also be central to a review article intended for the journal Annual Review of Anthropology, to be submitted for review during 2020.
The second result emerged more organically from the ethnographic material collected during fieldwork in Burkina Faso in 2017 and 2018, as it became apparent that the experiences of protracted displacement – central to the conceptual framing of the project – were highly differentiated in urban settings, sometimes varying significantly within families. These urban dynamics were explored in a special issue of the journal Africa, published in 2018, and will inform the analytical approach of a monograph currently under preparation, provisionally entitled “Moving through war and peace”, which will focus on the re-settlement experiences of Burkinabe labour migrants over the past two decades.
Finally, the third main result of the project is a theoretical development in how social networks are conceptualised, with reference to migrant networks but applicable to a broader range of social connections. This analytical interest also emerged from the ethnographic material and was instructive in the articulation of a research grant application on the theme of “Soft infrastructures of regional labour mobilities in the wider Sahel”, which was granted by the Swedish Research Council (VR) in 2019. This result will also be published in a journal article entitled “A family affair? Envisioning and enacting labour mobility through phatic kinship”, intended for the journal Cultural Anthropology.
NEW RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Through the above-mentioned (VR) research project, which I am leading, I am pursuing a new set of research questions that grew out of the study of “invisible displacements”, which revolve around the question of how different forms of mobility are facilitated by social ties and cultural idioms.
RESEARCH DISSEMINATION
In accordance with the original application, the project has aimed at publishing high quality academic texts in the most competitive journals and publishing houses, as well as shorter texts for a broader audience. In terms of academic publications, an edited book entitled “Invisibility in African displacements. From structural marginalization to strategies of avoidance” was submitted for language editing in February 2020, and is planned for publication in October 2020. The anthology presents thirteen empirical case studies from across the African continent, and an introduction co-written by the editors. It concludes with an Afterword by the esteemed South African migration scholar Loren B. Landau. The book will be made Open Access after a 9-month initial embargo. In addition to the already published texts listed in the appendix, one journal article has been submitted to the Journal of Modern African Studies, and two more articles are under preparation for submission to Annual Review of Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology, respectively. Since the disposal of project funds has ended, Open Access will be financed by other means, should the submission to Annual Review of Anthropology be accepted.
Finally, based on the empirical research conducted within the project, a manuscript for a monograph provisionally entitled “Moving through war and peace” is being prepared for submission to the University of Chicago Press.
In terms of other outputs, the project has provided the opportunity for a considerable number of public lectures and other forms of outreach activities (see appendix), focussing on the invisible aspects of refugee migration and the migration-development nexus. These interactions were useful for adding a more migrant-centred perspective to the current political and policy thinking on African migration. Following the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, there has been a significant popular interest in (African) migration and I have participated in discussions and presentations on this theme in national media in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, in addition to the public lectures already mentioned. I have also been able to convey my findings and perspectives on African migration in meetings with representatives from the Ministries for Foreign Affairs and development agencies in the Nordic countries.
The project also provided the opportunity to co-direct a new European research network entitled “African Migration, Mobility, and Displacement” (AMMODI). The network is co-organised with Franzisca Zanker from the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute in Freiburg, under the auspices of the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS). AMMODI held its inaugural meeting in 2017 at the European Conference for African Studies in Basel, Switzerland, and at the end of the project we have registered more than 150 migration researchers as network members. The intention of the network is to act as a hub for academic and policy-related migration research; to publish original texts on the AMMODI website; and potentially to initiate joint research applications with the network as a platform.
PURPOSE AND ADJUSTMENTS
The overall objective of this project has been to provide an ethnographic analysis of involuntary mobilities that take place outside the purview of state bureaucracies and humanitarian agencies, thereby shifting the focus from the administrative categories of “refugees” and “internally displaced persons” towards ethnographies of invisibly displaced persons. Through ethnographic research in West Africa, this overall interest has been explored through the migration- and settlement histories of Burkinabe labour migrants, displaced from Côte d’Ivoire during the armed conflict 200-2011, as through the narratives and experiences of Burkinabe labour migrants who have remained in Côte d’Ivoire through these turbulent times.
Thematically, the project has remained focused on its initial purpose. The main adjustments to the original research plan have been practical in nature, relating to the changing security situation in this part of West Africa, as will be elaborated in the following section.
IMPLEMENTATION AND SUMMARY
The project has been implemented through a combination of in-depth and wide-ranging literature-based research and empirical field research in Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire. Fieldwork was carried out in southwestern Burkina Faso in June-July 2017 and April 2018, focussing on the narratives of involuntary returnees from Côte d’Ivoire. An additional two-week fieldwork in south-western Côte d’Ivoire was undertaken in September 2019, adding the voices of family members remaining in Côte d’Ivoire during the armed conflict.
Following the escalation of terror attacks in Burkina Faso since 2016, the security situation in both countries has changed significantly since the initiation of the project. I was still able to conduct fieldwork in both countries but given these changes, I opted not to bring my family with me as originally planned, and these factors set limits on the time I could spend in the field. Furthermore, the envisioned field sites in southwestern Burkina Faso were deemed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be a high-risk zone for foreign nationals after the 2016 attack in Ouagadougou and I was not able to conduct fieldwork in these sites.
MAIN RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The three main results of the project consist of 1) theory-building around migrant invisibilisation; 2) empirical and analytical perspectives on urban re-settlement strategies; and 3) theory-building around social network analysis related to regional labour mobility. The first result reflects the initial conceptual framework of the project proposal most explicitly and has been achieved through comprehensive literature-based research on migrant marginalisation. During the second half of 2018, Dr. Anna Baral was employed to assist in this endeavour. This theory-building formed the basis of the edited volume on “Invisibility in African displacements”, set for publication in 2020. This conceptual work will also be central to a review article intended for the journal Annual Review of Anthropology, to be submitted for review during 2020.
The second result emerged more organically from the ethnographic material collected during fieldwork in Burkina Faso in 2017 and 2018, as it became apparent that the experiences of protracted displacement – central to the conceptual framing of the project – were highly differentiated in urban settings, sometimes varying significantly within families. These urban dynamics were explored in a special issue of the journal Africa, published in 2018, and will inform the analytical approach of a monograph currently under preparation, provisionally entitled “Moving through war and peace”, which will focus on the re-settlement experiences of Burkinabe labour migrants over the past two decades.
Finally, the third main result of the project is a theoretical development in how social networks are conceptualised, with reference to migrant networks but applicable to a broader range of social connections. This analytical interest also emerged from the ethnographic material and was instructive in the articulation of a research grant application on the theme of “Soft infrastructures of regional labour mobilities in the wider Sahel”, which was granted by the Swedish Research Council (VR) in 2019. This result will also be published in a journal article entitled “A family affair? Envisioning and enacting labour mobility through phatic kinship”, intended for the journal Cultural Anthropology.
NEW RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Through the above-mentioned (VR) research project, which I am leading, I am pursuing a new set of research questions that grew out of the study of “invisible displacements”, which revolve around the question of how different forms of mobility are facilitated by social ties and cultural idioms.
RESEARCH DISSEMINATION
In accordance with the original application, the project has aimed at publishing high quality academic texts in the most competitive journals and publishing houses, as well as shorter texts for a broader audience. In terms of academic publications, an edited book entitled “Invisibility in African displacements. From structural marginalization to strategies of avoidance” was submitted for language editing in February 2020, and is planned for publication in October 2020. The anthology presents thirteen empirical case studies from across the African continent, and an introduction co-written by the editors. It concludes with an Afterword by the esteemed South African migration scholar Loren B. Landau. The book will be made Open Access after a 9-month initial embargo. In addition to the already published texts listed in the appendix, one journal article has been submitted to the Journal of Modern African Studies, and two more articles are under preparation for submission to Annual Review of Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology, respectively. Since the disposal of project funds has ended, Open Access will be financed by other means, should the submission to Annual Review of Anthropology be accepted.
Finally, based on the empirical research conducted within the project, a manuscript for a monograph provisionally entitled “Moving through war and peace” is being prepared for submission to the University of Chicago Press.
In terms of other outputs, the project has provided the opportunity for a considerable number of public lectures and other forms of outreach activities (see appendix), focussing on the invisible aspects of refugee migration and the migration-development nexus. These interactions were useful for adding a more migrant-centred perspective to the current political and policy thinking on African migration. Following the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, there has been a significant popular interest in (African) migration and I have participated in discussions and presentations on this theme in national media in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, in addition to the public lectures already mentioned. I have also been able to convey my findings and perspectives on African migration in meetings with representatives from the Ministries for Foreign Affairs and development agencies in the Nordic countries.
The project also provided the opportunity to co-direct a new European research network entitled “African Migration, Mobility, and Displacement” (AMMODI). The network is co-organised with Franzisca Zanker from the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute in Freiburg, under the auspices of the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS). AMMODI held its inaugural meeting in 2017 at the European Conference for African Studies in Basel, Switzerland, and at the end of the project we have registered more than 150 migration researchers as network members. The intention of the network is to act as a hub for academic and policy-related migration research; to publish original texts on the AMMODI website; and potentially to initiate joint research applications with the network as a platform.