Mobility in situ: Debating emigration and return in Western Mali

Project Information

MOBILIMA

Grant agreement ID: 749223

DOI

10.3030/749223

Project closed

EC signature date 11 April 2017

Start date 1 September 2017

End date 2 August 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 173 212,20

EU contribution

€ 173 212,20

Coordinated by

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MOBILIMA (Mobility in situ: Debating emigration and return in Western Mali)

Reporting period: 2019-09-01 to 2020-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

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 has tackled 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.
The project demonstrates that societies marked by mobility (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 contributes to a discussion of the notion of a “culture of migration”: this idea surfaces in many scholarly works on Soninke migration, and is also widespread in ordinary discourses, circulating among migrants and 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 with historical ruptures.
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?
This project has been developed with the following objectives:
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 thoroughly documents two often quoted but under-researched experiments: the “Coopérative of Somankidi”, a project named after the adjacent village Somankidi-Coura (literally “New Somankidi”), which was founded in 1977 by returnees from France of various West African origins; and the Radio Rurale de Kayes (RRK), initiated in 1988 by Italian NGOs, then funded and supported by returnees.
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 a key question I investigate, asking in what respect migration fits in longer patterns of dependence. This stems 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 multilayered 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. Migration is but one of the socially sanctioned avenues for social success, and I analyze the gendered and generational dimensions of these paths as they are locally discussed.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the outgoing phase (two years), I was based at Point Sud, Centre de recherche sur le savoir local, in Bamako where I have worked along the following lines.
Firstly, I received a linguistic training in Soninke, the main language around Kayes. Secondly, through field trips to Kayes and its surroundings I investigated the selected 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 other villages notably Sobokou. Thus, rather than three independent field sites, I have navigated partly within a similar social milieu of former migrants returned from France, many of which accessed political and associative responsibilities after the political transition in Mali (1991-1992). This was important in order to 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.
During the return phase (one year), I pursued the analysis of the ethnographic, archival and textual material collected
I contributed 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 developed an analytical framework in order to analyze women’s songs, and notably songs that celebrate migrants that I have presented to various audiences and which is the basis for a second paper. I spent a lot of time working with a teacher in Soninke so as to grasp the subtlety of these texts. I highlight the nuances of these discourses that easily get lost with a retrospective gaze.
I also focused my work on the radio, in two directions. Firstly, I developed a seminar series on the radio with a colleague specialist on the topic in Paris, building on the emergence of this topic in African studies. Secondly, I collaborated with the Radio Rurale de Kayes to a plan to preserve their sound archives (see below).
In workshops in Bamako and back in France, I initiated discussions with various actors (associative, activists, institutional and academics) on the issue of migration. In several instances, I contributed public debates in France and beyond.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The main result of this project are
- The demonstration of the heuristic value of an approach of popular culture as a field from which to reconsider the history of migration in one region (see paper in the Journal of African History; and future publications on songs) and current dynamics (see workshops in Bamako and forthcoming publication). Beyond scientific dissemination, this aspect has also been the basis for dissemination toward a wider public so as to change the dominant view of migration as a security issue.
- Scientific contribution to the social history of the region of Kayes and to the burgeoning field of interdisciplinary scholarship on the radio in Africa outside the national stations through publications and a seminar series.
- Efficient plans to share the material collected, notably the digitization of the sound archives of Radio Rurale de Kayes, for which I have secured funding.

Interview with Siré Soumaré, Somankidi-Coura, January 2019.