Migration In West Africa Research Articles

5 - Recalibrating the labyrinths of migration and health in West Africa

The discourses and practices surrounding migration and health have taken a dramatic turn since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Experts are more concerned about the consequences of the pandemic on these factors in Africa, given the continent’s weak economies and poor health sector, which portends a difficult post-pandemic recovery. However, the discussions have not engaged with two key effects of the coronavirus: the health implications not only on the general populace but also along border towns, and the dilemma of a ‘new’ (il)legal migration. Drawing on Ghana’s border policing as a Covid-19 pandemic governance strategy, coupled with existing debates on health, politics, migration and development, we argue that border policing is likely to create two emerging threats. First, it could cause a ‘new’ health dilemma – hindering long-standing cross-border healthcare access by ECOWAS citizens. Second, sustained border restrictions could deepen the intricacies of migration in West Africa, including the promotion of ‘elite migrants’ over migrants who are seeking a basic livelihood, the changing fate of undocumented migrants, new security threats at border town , and a possible redefinition of traditional rural–urban migration in Africa.

‘Beneficiary-Ownership’? Redemptive Knowledge and Policy-Making on Migration in West Africa

ABSTRACT West Africa sees major activity in the development of migration policies, promoted by international organisations, funded by governments mainly of Europe. Policy development is couched in terms of ‘beneficiary-ownership’, stressing the participation of West African governments. This is problematised as playing down the influence of European and international organisations. We argue that policy-making on migration in West Africa is better understood through the lens of ‘subjectional diplomacy’, a one-sided yet complex relationship between national and international actors that consolidates particular discourses of the ‘problem’ of migration. We find interview and documentary evidence from NGOs and governmental actors across Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea as well as ECOWAS Headquarters and international governmental organisations in Abuja that the logic of beneficiary-ownership is not symmetric. We show how the IOM holds ‘redemptive’ knowledge that turns the civilising mission of old into a professionalising mission embedding neo-colonial relations.

Understanding climate-induced migration in West Africa through the social transformation lens.

The climate crisis has migration implications, and we need to act inclusively and urgently. Climate change impacts people's decisions to migrate largely through economic, political, technological, demographic, and socio-cultural factors, and their dynamic interlinkages. These complex issues often influence climate risks and vulnerabilities and complicate effective investment and policy actions on migration. However, there is inadequate documentation on how climate change is linked to migration and social transformation. Based on a traditional literature review and inputs from a consultation dialogue, this paper analyzes climate-induced migration in West Africa using a social transformation lens. The paper conceptualizes the climate-induced migrant as an agent of adaptation and describes the complexities of climate vulnerabilities, and its intersection with social transformation in migration decisions. A social transformation conceptual framework is proposed to identify the complexities of climate-induced migration and ensure inclusive strategies are planned, implemented, and sustained. The paper discusses the need for transdisciplinary research approaches to capture various intersections of transforming socio-economic and environmental vulnerabilities across different countries and migratory landscapes. The paper also highlights the critical concern in the region regarding the "trapped population." It suggests that a social transformation lens is required to unravel the dynamics around vulnerable people unable to migrate because they do not have the resources to migrate or are constrained by cultural issues.

Afropolitan Masculinity: Forgeries of Wife-Owning Husbands in West Africa, 1850s–1950s

Between the 1850s and 1950s, when abolitionism masked neoslavery and engendered displacement and forced labour migration in West Africa, Africans used forgery as a survival mechanism. They forged legal documents, claimed multiple forms of citizenship and belonging as Afropolitans, and manipulated kinship and imperial bureaucracy in the quest for freedom. One arena of forgery examined in this article entailed the invention of “husband” as “wife-owner,” within a context of gendered aspirations for social reproduction in the age of abolition. Southeastern Nigerian male migrants mobilised freedom papers, labour contracts, marriage certificates, and the medium of petition-writing to fashion themselves into Afropolitan wife-owners in a bid to survive transimperial displacement, marginalisation, and subordination that arose from abolition forgery. Afropolitan masculinity illuminates how abolition forgery generated enduring structures of hierarchical gender relations in West Africa.

Rights to life during migration in and from West Africa: the role of policies and narrative frames

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how policies on migration in West Africa and from the region to Europe address and frame migrants’ deaths and right to life in general and actions recommended in objective 8 of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) in particular. The paper is based on an analysis of West African national, as well as African and (West) African-European transnational policy and strategy documents. It finds that while the adoption of GCM objective 8 has contributed to slightly increase policy attention to migrants’ deaths and right to life, narrative frames have been key for the justification of how the six actions recommended in the objective have been addressed and implemented at the national, regional, and transregional levels. African policy documents supporting human right-oriented narrative frames have tended to include more comprehensive provisions, and European Union-(West) African policy documents supporting deterrence-oriented frames have tended to include less provisions.

Mediating Mobility in West Africa: Improvisation, Culture, and Volatility in Migration Infrastructures

How do migrants enact their mobilities in contexts where formalized labor migration is minimal, and where the European fight against irregular African migration is restricting the possibilities for informal border crossings? And which roles do cultural norms, social institutions, and individual agency play in facilitating migration? To answer these questions, this article offers a comparative reflection on the growing interest in the mediation of migration that emphasizes the actors and structures that shape and facilitate a migrant trajectory. Drawing on our own research in various West African contexts, and on a broader reading of research evoking the mediation of mobility, we engage primarily with the emerging scholarship on migration infrastructures. As a contribution to the study of how mobility is mediated by actors and structures external to the migrant, we suggest that it is important to move beyond the tendency to restrict analysis in a migrant-/institution-centric trade-off in which emphasis is either placed on migrant aspirations and capabilities or the institutionalized mediation of migration. We further propose to analytically distinguish between the mediation of migration—denoting the processes of facilitation and restriction of mobility through institutions, external interventions, and socio-cultural practices—and the modular components of connection and organization through which actual migration occurs. To accentuate the shifting and volatile configuration of these elements, we suggest a concept of migration infrastructural assemblages. We thereby emphasize the benefits of incorporating improvisation, culture, and volatility in our understanding of the meditation of migration in West Africa and beyond.

Femmes en migration en Afrique de l’Ouest: un avenir d’émancipation?

Women in Migration in West Africa: a Future of Emancipation?. This article deals with female cross-border migration in West Africa. It is based on a research project on women migration (2020-2021), coordinated by the Réseau d’Étude des Migrations internationales africaines (REMIGRAF), of the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar. It highlights some results of the research, such as the specificity of the needs, the choices and strategies of women migrants, the adaptive and vulnerability factors, useful to local and regional (i.e. ECOWAS) sustainable public policies.

Migration in West Africa , by Joseph Kofi Teye (ed.)

Migration in West Africa , by Joseph Kofi Teye (ed.)

Where to go? Migration and climate change response in West Africa

While certain models predict tens of millions of people will be on the move in West Africa as a result of climate change, most existing studies tend to focus on regions that have comparatively less migration flows compared to this particular region. This article investigates the patterns and complex root causes of migration in West Africa. It shows that unlike some other places, involuntary migration of the region‘s vulnerable populations is mostly intraregional. It also presents the common migratory routes and concludes that long-term mitigation efforts need to be complemented with near-term adaptation options to increase the resilience of concerned communities and ultimately reduce forced migration. This article urges international researchers and concerned policymakers to focus on the challenges and solutions to climate change-induced and environmental related migration, especially in the West African region.

Whither the ECOWAS free movement protocols? Pandemic nationalism, borders, and migration in West Africa

The Covid-19 pandemic border closure policy and other anti-migrant policies in 2020 have become another basis for flaunting the ECOWAS free movement protocols by member states now referred to as pandemic nationalism. Although not limited to (West) Africa, pandemic nationalism reinforces the inability of ECOWAS to demonstrate supranationalism and ensure harmonization of Covid-19 trans-border policies among its members. Consequently, member states were unilaterally imposing conflicting or uncoordinated Coronavirus border closure policy without recourse to the protocols. Thus, the pandemic border closure policy has only exacerbated pre-existing trajectories which have serious implications for visa-free, border-free, and borderless West Africa as well as cross-border migration. These challenges are often attributed to colonial borders. This article has been able to adequately demonstrate that the Covid-19 pandemic has deepened nationalism which has, in turn, increased violation of ECOWAS free movement protocols through uncoordinated and reprisal border closure in which nationalism has trumped regionalism. The study is essentially qualitative, descriptive, analytical, and empirical.

“Wives Wishing to Join Their Husbands”: Colonial Forgery, Gender Legibility, and Labor Migration in West Africa

AbstractEuropean mobilizations of Africans for labor relied on the forgery that Africans can be harnessed into modern units of capitalist production only when organized into households led by wage-earning men supported by domesticated women. Between the 1930s and 1950s, Nigerian male labor migrants to Fernando Po and Gabon, as well as their wives, advanced diverse forgeries in response to the legibility protocols that European states used to control African migrants. Nigerian men used colonial documentation of their status as husbands to claim women’s bodies. Nigerian women used colonial documentation as wives and mothers to mask autonomy, illicit mobility, child trafficking, and sex work. This article develops a historical theory of forgery to explain how colonial legibility protocols and African manipulations of colonial documents constituted gendering practices. It focuses on the diverse documentary strategies women developed to evade colonial surveillance, including photographs to manufacture kinship and colonial court records to generate identities as temporary wives and fictive mothers. As European agents and African men strove to exploit women’s economic and sexual capacities, women used documentary and social forgeries to exploit fissures in colonial rule and create autonomous spaces of mobility and economic opportunity.

Migration in West Africa: a visual analysis of motivation, causes, and routes

Migration in West Africa has been taking place for centuries for different reasons. Many dimensions of migration remain insufficiently documented and poorly understood. In particular, factors of migration in destination areas and areas of origin are still lacking comprehensive analysis. In this paper, we bring a new perspective to the model of push and pull factors of migration in West Africa by reviewing and analyzing interview-based case studies of migration related to Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria, as well as to the associated migration routes. The overall aim of this study was to determine the areas that individuals historically chose as destinations for migration and what they perceived to be the distinctive conditions in those areas. Hence, characteristic features about destination areas and areas of origin were identified and located in maps, whereas interrelationships among push and pull factors were illustrated by means of Sankey diagrams. With these tools, we provide a novel combination for visualizing the reasons for migration. The literature review emphasizes the complex relationships between different drivers of migration, with environmental and economic factors emerging as the most important drivers of migration in the focus countries. Moreover, the identified and mapped migration patterns suggest that individuals migrate mainly from the northern part of a particular country to its center or southern regions. This scientific approach shows that the spatial allocation of migratory movements can facilitate assessments on how to meet specific Sustainable Development Goals and to improve regional policies.

The politicization and framing of migration in West Africa: transition to democracy as a game changer?

ABSTRACT Migration was prominently set on West African political agendas with Europe’s increasing pressure for cooperation since the 2000s. Notwithstanding, we have hardly any insights about how politicized migration is in that region, how West African policymakers frame migration and why. Relying on newspaper data, we analyse the politicization and framing of migration in the Gambia from 2009 to 2020. This small West African state with very high emigration to Europe is a good case study to verify the so-called ‘regime effect’ in migration policymaking because it underwent a democratic transition in 2016. The analysis shows that the transition to democracy did not lead so much to a policy change, but to a change of migration politics on the most salient sub-issue: cooperation on forced return with migrant-receiving states. We show that democratization led to a clear multiplication of national and international claims-makers on this topic, polarizing policy positions for and against cooperation, and a diversification of justification frames. The paper shows how democratic policymakers in the Global South, differently from autocracies or Western democratic states, struggle with creative and diversifying justification frames to cater the needs of both international donors and electorates.

Migration and regional cooperation for development: ECOWAS in perspective

ABSTRACT The phenomenon of migration involves the movement of people from one milieu to another. Different reasons underscore this movement by people such as escape from conflict, quest for greener pasture, search for employment, and coercion from criminal syndicates. This paper focuses on the dynamics of intra-regional migration in West Africa. The importance of migration within West Africa is emphasized in the region’s development agenda, Vision 2020, which places importance on regional resource development. Ease of migration is central to harnessing the region’s human resource potential for development ends. At inception, migration within West Africa was governed by the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of persons, residence, and establishment adopted in 1979. Within this framework, migration is considered as an integral element in the economic integration of the region. Hence, the protocol provides the right of entry for 90 days, residence and establishment for citizens of ECOWAS member countries. The ECOWAS Common Approach on Migration adopted in 2008 currently governs the migration process in the region. In interrogating migration governance in West Africa, this paper identifies challenges, such as, defective state capacities and continued underdevelopment, protectionist policies, language, colonial vestiges, such as, currency, among others, as factors militating against the successful exploitation of the region’s productive population for development ends.

Characterising the relationship between migration and stigma affecting healthcare engagement among female sex workers in Lomé, Togo

ABSTRACT Migration in West Africa is common and complicates the sustained delivery of comprehensive HIV care programmes for those with specific vulnerabilities to HIV, including female sex workers (FSW). This study evaluated whether migration potentiates the burden of stigma affecting FSW in Lomé, Togo. Respondent driven sampling identified 354 FSW who completed HIV testing and a questionnaire. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with stigma among FSW. Among study participants, 76.3% (270/354) were migrants, with 30.2% (107/354) reporting stigma. Migrant FSW were less likely to report stigma (aOR 0.40; 95% CI:0.22–0.73). FSW who had an abortion (aOR 3.40; 95% CI:1.79–6.30) and were tested for a sexually transmitted infection (STI) or HIV (aOR 2.03; 95% CI:1.16–3.55) were more likely to report stigma. Among FSW, 59.8% (211/353) disclosed selling sex to a health worker. Disclosure was more common among FSW who had been tested for an STI or HIV (36.7%; 77/210), or both (55.7%; 117/210), and resulted in an attenuated but significant association between STI or HIV testing and stigma, indicating that disclosure partially mediated the relationship. These results highlight the need to mitigate healthcare-related stigma affecting FSW, while also considering decentralised HIV testing approaches, including HIV self-testing.

Political Economy of Internal Migration and Labor-Seeking Behavior of Poor Youth in Ghana

Recent discussion of youth migration in West Africa has focused on movement across the Sahara into North Africa and Southern Europe. This paper explores the impacts of the current forms of internal migration and shifts in labor-/employment-seeking behavior of youth within national boundaries in the African context using Ghana as a case study. The process is perceived to have been deepened by neoliberal programs and the continued adoption of extensive market liberalization and associated fiscal policies. The analysis of the study provides evidence of internal mobility of youth seeking employment within the boundaries of Ghana. This is in contrast to recent dominant discussions in the migration literature that tend to focus on migration of West African youth across the Sahara to Northern Africa and Southern Europe. This study utilizes data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS) (Ghana Statistical Service [GSS], 2014a), which covered a nationwide sample of 18,000 households. This analysis centers on four administrative regions in Ghana that record the highest numbers of young internal migrants: Greater Accra, Western, Brong Ahafo, and Ashanti regions. The study shows that employment rates among migrant youth in urban destinations remain comparatively higher than those of nonmigrants. Out-migration therefore provides an avenue for unemployed youth to gain access to wider employment opportunities outside their homes or places of birth. Also, while migrations tend to follow a predominantly north-to-south trajectory, there is evidence of south-north and south-south movements, as well as movements to locations that are not necessarily urban. Conversely, our study found that young internal migrants are often engaged in less stable, noncontract employment, making them vulnerable to employer abuses and exploitation.

Political Economy of Internal Migration and Labor-Seeking Behavior of Poor Youth in Ghana

Recent discussion of youth migration in West Africa has focused on movement across the Sahara into North Africa and Southern Europe. This paper explores the impacts of the current forms of internal migration and shifts in labor-/employment-seeking behavior of youth within national boundaries in the African context using Ghana as a case study. The process is perceived to have been deepened by neoliberal programs and the continued adoption of extensive market liberalization and associated fiscal policies. The analysis of the study provides evidence of internal mobility of youth seeking employment within the boundaries of Ghana. This is in contrast to recent dominant discussions in the migration literature that tend to focus on migration of West African youth across the Sahara to Northern Africa and Southern Europe. This study utilizes data from the <i>Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS)</i> (Ghana Statistical Service [GSS], 2014a), which covered a nationwide sample of 18,000 households. This analysis centers on four administrative regions in Ghana that record the highest numbers of young internal migrants: Greater Accra, Western, Brong Ahafo, and Ashanti regions. The study shows that employment rates among migrant youth in urban destinations remain comparatively higher than those of nonmigrants. Out-migration therefore provides an avenue for unemployed youth to gain access to wider employment opportunities outside their homes or places of birth. Also, while migrations tend to follow a predominantly north-to-south trajectory, there is evidence of south-north and south-south movements, as well as movements to locations that are not necessarily urban. Conversely, our study found that young internal migrants are often engaged in less stable, noncontract employment, making them vulnerable to employer abuses and exploitation.

Nollywood stars: media and migration in West Africa and the diaspora

Preface and Acknowledgments A Note on Orthography and Taxonomy Introduction: Global Stars in Nigeria's Postindependence Firmament: From Ossie Davis to Doctor Bello 1. From Yoruba to YouTube: Studying Nollywood's Star System 2. Glittering Video: Format, Fashion, and the Materiality of Nollywood Stardom 3. A Mobile Glow: Nollywood Stardom and Corporate Globalism 4. When Stars Collide: Lady Gaga and the Pirating of a Globalized Persona 5. Nollywood's Progeny: Stardom and the Politics of Youth Empowerment 6. Professionalizing Childhood: Nollywood and the New Youth Transnationalism Afterword: Honoring Nollywood Stars Filmography Notes Bibliography Index

Migration of Senegalese fishers: a case for regional approach to management

This article traces the recent history of Senegalese small-scale fishers’ migration in West Africa. It details how migration of Senegalese fishers developed and then intensified to become a specialized fishing strategy spread out all along the coast of West Africa, from Mauritania to Sierra Leone and beyond. This escalation has rapidly led to the depletion of fish stocks in the region. Today, while fishing migration still largely contributes to food security and provision of sustainable livelihood for coastal communities, this type of migration has reached both an ecological and social deadlock and its future is largely uncertain. Based on current trends in Senegalese fishing migration, this paper highlights the main drivers of changes and impacts of migration. It proposes the development of a regional approach to fisheries management, emphasizing the need for collaborative transnational research projects and stressing the necessity for biodiversity project managers to include the issue of fisheries migration in their regional conservation strategies. It also suggests there may be a need to introduce property rights so as to limit the open access enjoyed by Senegalese migrant fishers almost all over the West African sub-region.

Titanic tales of missing men: Reconfigurations of national identity and gendered presence in Dakar, Senegal

Amidst a crisis of clandestine migration in West Africa, tales about the exploits of missing circulated through Dakar, Senegal. In this article, I explore how these myths enabled debate about the changing parameters of male social visibility, nation building, and social success in the city at the same time that they paradoxically recast as spectacularly present men who had failed to achieve by these standards. I argue that both public discourse about and scholarly analysis of the impact of transnational migration on those left behind recenter the activities of some men, rendering invisible other modes of being and belonging.