Paper short abstract:

Translocal networks and migration are the everyday life's norm in sub-Saharan Africa to respond to the widespread vulnerability. Within the networks, children circulate between different household members for manifold reasons and with manifold outcomes for themselves and their family network.

Paper long abstract:

Translocal networks between rural and urban areas are of vital importance for large populations in sub-Saharan Africa, notably Burkina Faso. In these networks, the associated individuals try to organize their daily lives together by distributing chances and risks at different places. For this purpose, goods, money, ideas, values and of course people circulate within these places in the translocal networks. Among the people circulating are children who migrate for manifold purposes which depend on the network's necessity of labour and care distribution, their sex and age and individual skills. For example, girls are likely to be fostered to relatives or friends in the network to help in the household; boys often come to the cities to help their uncles in their garages. Some of the fostered children attend evening courses and thus enhance their skills; others are simply fostered to a lonely or old aunt to keep her company. The outcomes for and effects of this fostering on the children are diverse and depend on the course of the fostering, individual characteristics and interpersonal relations. However, it can be generalized that the idiom "children are the future" is of particular weight in this context, as investment in children not only improves the children's lives and future perspectives, but those of the translocal network as a whole: If the fostering is perceived positively by all participants, it has enormous development chances for the child and the network in store. If it is not, a collapse of the network might be possible.

Paper short abstract:

Presenting the encounters with some young immigrants in Rabat (Morocco), institutionally called "unaccompanied foreign minors", I will attempt to share the rich and complex network of relationships around them, trying to grasp the reconfiguration of their relational bonds on the move.

Paper long abstract:

The case of "unaccompanied foreign/migrant minors" category, widely used in today migration speeches and politics, far from being taken for granted, shows and pursues itself a model and idea of family that could not be shared by the actors charged of this label. What happens to the family and especially to the speeches and representations on it, when, on a mere juridical level, it seems not to be there? Which connections and disruptions between the ideas of family mobilized by humanitarian agencies and the ones of the states and people with whom they are involved?

During the research with a small group of young migrants in Rabat (Morocco), coming from West and Central African countries and mainly willing to reach Europe, I tried to figure out the speeches, the representations and the reconfiguration of their relational bonds. Kinship ties were what could help, but what could tie too; what could remain on the place you first left and/or could be constantly refreshed and recreated within (and without) the trans-community on the move. Weaving and crushing together the reflection on family relations with the one on movement and mobility (both physical and virtual) seemed a fruitful possibility to "mobilize" the discussion about family into families on one way and to "relationalize" (take into account the role intimate relations plays) the mobility phenomena on the other way.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores links between changing ideas about education in the kinship group and adolescents' migration. The stories shared by adolescent migrants in Lower Casamance, Senegal, show that adolescents experience and do relatedness in gendered ways.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the links between changing ideas about education within the wider kinship group and adolescents' migration to enable their educational aspirations. Our analysis includes formal schooling and vocational training, often in the form of informal apprenticeships. Earlier studies in West Africa have shown a narrowing of the sense of obligation and responsibility among rural and urban based kin, which is not simply a one-way process of urban kin feeling stretched by requests for help with schooling from poor rural relatives. The fact that young rural relatives sometimes replace the domestic labour of urban cousins at the expense of their own education, has changed how rural parents and adolescents themselves look at relatedness and the relationships involve recurrent negotiation. In this paper, we look at how gender differences in mobility patterns tie in with local notions of gender and age appropriate work which in turn shape educational opportunities for adolescent boys and girls. Through the stories shared by adolescent migrants in Ziguinchor in the Lower Casamance region of Senegal in a series of field trips between October 2017 and October 2018, the paper examines how the network of kin use education and relocation to negotiate gender identities and statuses within the kinship group, and how adolescents position themselves in relation to these negotiations. We argue that although many adolescents emulate the dominant views on their position in the family, it is through their work practices, demeanour and educational dreams that we discover how influence their pathways and mobilities.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic work in a town in Ghana, this article contests traditional understandings of the concept of kinship embedded in the New Economics of Labour Migration literature and argues that kinship in some contexts should be broadened to include those without blood ties.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic work in a town in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana with a 30 year history of migration to Libya, this article contests traditional understandings of the concept of kinship embedded in the New Economics of Labour Migration literature. While feminist scholars of migration have critiqued this literature for assuming a unitary model of kinsfolk in a household, few scholars have questioned the fact that the household model embedded in this literature assumes a Western conception of households as kinsfolk united by blood ties. This article which highlights the extent to which friends contribute to decision making regarding migration contests this understanding of a household and suggests that in some contexts, household models as used in migration studies need to be broadened to include those without blood ties.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on narratives of both female domestic workers in Ethiopia and returnees from Arab Countries, I explore how the daily interactions between domestic workers and their employers (and other family members) may lead to new forms of relatedness and constructed kinship

Paper long abstract:

Drawing upon qualitative research conducted with both female live-in domestic workers within Ethiopia (Addis Abeba) and returnees from Arab Countries, I shall explore the way domestic workers' experiences may lead to a redefinition of family relations and a creation of new forms of relatedness.

The relationship with women's mobility is not fixed and there is a large diversity among domestic workers. Migration can be a response to acute family needs, as well as a response to unmet aspirations, or a strategy to escape particular family demands.

Instead of only pointing to oppression and abuse, recent studies have highlighted that female domestic workers may employ various strategies to deal with the challenges inherent to their life. A more inclusive approach is required that leaves space for domestic worker agency in relationship with employers and their families.

The daily interactions between employees and their employers (and other family members) is the location of tensions which concern wider transformations of domestic and family relations. In some cases, thanks to the rhetoric of being 'part of the family', domestic workers practise a form of constructed kinship to carve out personal spaces away from their rural home. Such process entails significant personal investment on the part of women, helping them construct new identities and opening up possibilities for challenging the power hierarchy in their home. In this regard, narratives of women who work within Ethiopia and those who go abroad relate to each other.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper we examine how migrant daughters assist relatives left behind. The assistance, we argue, is often to secure a patrimony of sorts in households.

Paper long abstract:

In Zimbabwe, there has been a huge movement of people to the diaspora, South Africa. While this movement was dominated by males, it has now become characterized by the involvement of youths and women. In this paper we examine the support that women give to potential migrants, and the expectations that they have in so doing. We argue that daughters use this support to relatives as a way to bargain for a larger role in lineage decision making and inheritance .

Our data comes from ethnographic work in Chivi district of Masvingo, Zimbabwe. This is where daughters who themselves are migrants, are now supporting people left at home, as well as potential migrants. They do so to win the support of fathers who customarily don't confer them patrimonial rights.

Paper short abstract:

The study aims to investigate kinship networks and destination selection. Using sequential mixed method design, the study seeks to examine the demographic characteristics of the urban refugees in Kampala, Uganda and how the selection of destination was negotiated through social connections.

Paper long abstract:

Kinship networks have gained significance in the context of new forms of migration to cities in Sub Saharan Africa. In particular, among forced migrants in African cities, ties formed through family, kinship, friendship and ethnic networks have been instrumental in access to livelihood opportunities in cities (Omata, 2012; Crush and Tawodzera, 2017). Migration decisions have also been shaped by connections through kinship ties (Shaffer, Ferrato and Jinnah, 2018).

In spite of the interest in kinship ties in migration systems in Sub Saharan Africa, little is known on the role of these network ties and the selection of destinations in the context of forced migration. Taking the case of urban refugees in Kampala, the proposed study aims to understand the ways in which family, friendship, kinship or ethnic ties influence the agency of the refugees in selecting the cities of their destinations. The study will investigate the demographic characteristics of the urban refugees, their patterns of migration, the configuration of their social networks and the ways in which the selection of Kampala was negotiated through social connections.

I propose that access to kinship networks in city of destination may enhance individual agency in deciding where to reside and may disrupt the camp system of refugee accommodation practiced in many Sub Saharan African countries. The proposed study will employ sequential mixed method design, drawing on secondary data and primary data. The study will contribute to a better understanding of the linkages between social networks and destination selection.