Abstract
Based on ethnographic data this chapter discusses how the memories of awful deportation brought African migrants into Associations and provided them a real possibility to redefine their new identity. These Associations try to present, through constructed discourses and staging the dramas of deportation, a positive image of their members as the heroes who became victims of EU selfish migration policies. The new form of forced return is an evidence of a painful failure for all those who had once dreamed to reach Europe with the purpose of fulfilling their economic and social expectations. Particularly following questions are raised: (1) how did these Associations redefine the identity of deported migrants by denunciating EU migration policies? (2) How these Associations challenge the UE’s claim of human rights through staging their deportation ordeals? (3) And how their transitional status influenced their social life in Mali?
Translated by Samantha Joeck.
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Notes
- 1.
At the time of my research, there were around 80 associations for both deported and willingly returned migrants operating in Mali.
- 2.
In 2004, a special ministry, le Ministère des Maliens de l’Extérieur et l’Intégration Africaine, was created to deal with the ever-increasing number of Malian returnees from Ivory Coast.
- 3.
‘The charter Debré’ was the nickname for the plane named after the French Minister for Internal Affairs at the time.
- 4.
CODEV stands for Co-développement, a French programme to support migrants who return voluntarily. It focused on the Kayes region in Mali because so many immigrants in Paris came from there. TOKTEN stands for ‘Transfer of Knowledge through National Expatriates’—a UNDP programme to support Malian universities by financing two-to-three week teaching missions by Malian academics working at universities in Europe or elsewhere in Africa.
- 5.
With the increase in ‘boat refugees’ since the Arab Spring, it has become clear that such close supervision is impossible.
- 6.
Of a population of about 14 million, roughly 4 million Malians are living outside the country.
- 7.
Promoting circular migration entailed a communication strategy to give potential future migrants accurate information about job opportunities in Europe and how they can be recruited for short-term labour contracts after which they return home. For example, more than 90 % of the more than 12,000 female labourers from Morocco who went to Spain for seasonal work returned to Morocco afterwards. France, Portugal and Ireland are following this example (see the report in the Francophone Moroccan daily newspaper, Le Matin, 16 September 2008).
- 8.
One aim of French migration policy is to attract migrants who are highly qualified in the natural sciences, engineering and computer science—hence ‘chosen migration’.
- 9.
- 10.
See photos of the play at: http://aracem.canalblog.com/archives/culture/index.html.
References
Bredeloup, S. (2014). Migrations d’aventures. Terrains africains. Paris: Éditions du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques.
Dougnon, I. (2013). Migration as coping with risk: African migrants’ conception of being far from home and states’ policy of barriers. In A. Kane & T. H. Leedy (Eds.), African migrations: Patterns and perspectives (pp. 33–58). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
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Dougnon, I. (2016). Expelled from Fortress Europe: Returned Migrant Associations in Bamako and the Quest for Cosmopolitan Citizenship. In: Duyvendak, J., Geschiere, P., Tonkens, E. (eds) The Culturalization of Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53410-1_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53410-1_9
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