On west African roads: everyday mobility and exchanges between Mauritania, Senegal and Mali

Abstract

This paper sheds light on everyday mobility and exchange between Mauritania, Mali and Senegal. Far beyond the “pirogues episode” and sensationalist cases, our micro approach is useful for understanding social mutations, embedded networks and scales, the multiple figures of circulating people and the importance of transportation. Based on empirical and multi-situated fieldwork in the three countries, this research inquires into the reality of circulation, with its supposed fluidity and its frequent standstills. We will see that increasing controls, linked to security and migratory European issues, hinder these ordinary movements and exchanges. The Mali-Mauritania-Senegal space shows that mobility is more intense and complex than expected. It is impossible to reduce mobility in Africa to one-way flows with no logic other than fleeing from extreme poverty.