Schapendonk, Joris; Bolay, Matthieu; Dahinden, Janine (2021). The conceptual limits of the ‘migration journey’. De-exceptionalising mobility in the context of West African trajectories. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(14), pp. 3243-3259. Routledge 10.1080/1369183X.2020.1804191
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The_conceptual_limits_of_the_migration_journey_De_exceptionalising_mobility_in_the_context_of_West_African_trajectories.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works (CC-BY-NC-ND). Download (1MB) | Preview |
The ‘migration journey’ has proven to be a fruitful lens to question the simplistic notion that the outcome of migration solely depends on a momentous go/no-go decision in the countries of origin. At the same time, we argue that the normative/sedentarist principles of migration studies produce the risk to approach the journey as an exceptional phase of mobility, in-between presumed place-based lives. This paper therefore aims to explore the conceptual limits of the migration journey literature. To challenge the notion that the migration journey is fundamentally different from pre- and post-migratory mobilities, we combine two empirical research projects that have followed the im/mobility trajectories of West Africans. The first project focuses on the trajectories of itinerant gold miners within West Africa, the second concentrates on the im/mobility of West Africans within Europe. By juxtaposing the empirical insights of these seemingly different contexts, we stress the need to embed migratory movements in a continuous field of mobility practices across spaces in Africa and Europe. This results in our plea for a research agenda that does not see ‘migrancy’ as a pre-given marker of difference, but as a normative artefact of mobility regimes.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Social Anthropology |
UniBE Contributor: |
Bolay, Matthieu |
Subjects: |
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology |
ISSN: |
1469-9451 |
Publisher: |
Routledge |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Anja Julienne Wohlgemuth |
Date Deposited: |
01 Dec 2021 14:33 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 15:55 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1080/1369183X.2020.1804191 |
BORIS DOI: |
10.48350/161629 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/161629 |
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