Visa problem: certification, kinship, and the production of ‘ineligibility’ in the Gambia

Abstract

The article describes the documentary vicissitudes of young Gambian men of Soninke ethnicity. Normally the most mobile subjects in a milieu where international migration is central to subsistence and prosperity, these young men often fail to secure entry visas to the West and other desirable destinations owing to restrictive admission policies. Would‐be travellers cope with high rejection rates, but also struggle to secure financial and logistical support from relatives in order to meet the demanding requirements of visa applications. Since kinship mediates access to travel documents, the article suggests that visa ineligibility is a product of both state‐based and societal practices of certification. It shows how the visa regime plays into the kinship reciprocities and affects that produce, discipline, and select prospective migrants, thereby transferring and concealing the arbitrariness and uncertainty of legal‐political structures of mobility.