Abstract
Migration has long been used as a strategy for livelihood diversification in rural, subsistence communities. Yet in order for migration to effectively serve as a livelihood diversification strategy, it should meet certain conditions: migration should ease financial burdens, should confer access to economically valuable resources and information, and should broaden social networks. Using qualitative data gathered in 25 interviews with rural migrants to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, we examine how mobile phone technology has impacted migration as a livelihood diversification strategy. Our results show that while mobile phones facilitate migration, the advantages conferred may benefit migrants at the expense of the home communities. Mobile phones alleviate financial constraints, enable access to broader networks, and facilitate informational and resource support among migrants. Our results show limited evidence of migrants using mobile phone technology to provide resources or information to the home community. Our results highlight the need to reconsider the ways in which migration can be used as a livelihood diversification strategy in light of changing communication technologies to promote the economic success of both migrants and their home communities.
Highlights
Given the increasingly variable climates, extensive poverty, limited infrastructure and dearth of economic opportunities, perhaps no other families on Earth are as vulnerable to livelihood instability as subsistence farming families and communities in West Africa
Our aim was to explore the technology-mediated transfer of advice, information, and resources between migrants and their communities of origin with the idea that recent migrants to urban areas have access to knowledge that might support farmers in their home communities. We explored this topic in a series of focus group interviews with rural-to-urban migrants living in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Results are divided into the four principal categories outlined in our Theoretical Models and Lingering Questions section, above: (1) the exchange of advice, information, and resources between migrants and their sending communities via mobile phone, (2) technology use and capital exchanges between migrants, (3) ICTs and mobile telephony as catalysts and facilitators of domestic migration, and (4) drawbacks of ICTs and negative impacts on migration
Summary
Given the increasingly variable climates, extensive poverty, limited infrastructure and dearth of economic opportunities, perhaps no other families on Earth are as vulnerable to livelihood instability as subsistence farming families and communities in West Africa. One potential strategy for mitigating household livelihood insecurity is out-migration–where select individuals from farming communities leave their origin community in search of other opportunities to earn money. This is part of a well-documented “livelihood diversification” strategy widely. The key idea is that households attempt to diversify their livelihood portfolios by sending one or several members out as migrants [3,17,18] These migrations capitalize on employment and wage opportunities in other places. Daily interaction with home communities reduces the costs of migration by contributing to the maintenance of family and community ties, enabling the coordination of household activities from afar, and facilitating the communication of remittances—but the management, coordination, and distribution of those remittances. In one study of migration from Iraq and the Sudan, Mikal and Woodfield [27] suggest that technology can ease the stress of migration upon arrival by promoting social integration and reducing time costs associated with daily hassles
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