Disentangling Mining and Migratory Routes in West Africa: Decisions to Move in Migranticised Settings

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Social Inclusion (ISSN: 2183–2803) 2022, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 DOI: 10.17645/si.v9i1.3715

Article Disentangling Mining and Migratory Routes in West Africa: Decisions to Move in Migranticised Settings

Matthieu Bolay

Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; E-Mail: [email protected]

Submitted: 2 October 2020 | Accepted: 23 October 2020 | Published: 25 March 2021

Abstract This article scrutinizes the trajectories of African men whose cross-border movements intersect two types of mobility routes: mining and migration routes. Drawing on field research in Mali and Guinea, as well as phone interviews with male miners/migrants in North Africa and Europe, this article provides a case to empirically question some of the premises in the approach to migration decision-making by giving a voice to African men moving across borders who do not necessarily identify as (prospective) ‘migrants.’ Building upon International Organization for Migration data and secondary sources, this article starts by sketching where migration and mining routes overlap. It then examines, in detail, the mobility trajectories of men who were sometimes considered migrants and other times miners in order to identify how these different routes relate to one another. While overseas migration is certainly not a common project for itinerant miners, the gold mines constitute a transnational space that fosters the expansion of movements across the continent, including outside the field of mining. Rather than encouraging overseas migration, gold mines appear to be more of a safety net, not only for seasonal farmers or young people in search of money and adventure, but also, increasingly, for people who are confronted with Europe’s intra-African deportation regime.

Keywords artisanal and small-scale mining; border regime; Guinea; Mali; migration; mobility; North Africa; West Africa

Issue This article is part of the issue “Decision-Making under Uncertainty: African Migrants in the Spotlight” edited by Didier Ruedin (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa / University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland).

1. Introduction sanal gold mines and migration mobility to North Africa or Europe. The article proceeds by analysing how min- West Africa is considered to have the most mobile popu- ing and migration intersect in the mobility trajectories of lation in the world, with intra-regional mobility account- African men who work, or have worked, in gold mines ing for 70% of all cross-border movements according and who have, or intend to extend their mobility to North to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Africa or Europe. In doing so, the article asks whether and Intense mobility in West Africa has deep historical roots how these men strategically articulate these two forms (De Bruijn, van Dijk, & Foeken, 2001) involving interwo- of mobility. By giving a voice to people who regularly ven migration cultures of kinship and ethnicized labour cross-national borders, but who do not necessarily iden- specialization, as well as mobile livelihood and educa- tify themselves as ‘migrants,’ the article provides a case tion strategies (Hahn & Klute, 2007). As Bilger and Kraler that challenges some of the premises in the approach to (2005, p. 10) argue, mobility, rather than sedentariness, migration decision-making. is considered the norm in the region. This article jointly The reason for this common approach to apparently examines two important forms of movement that are separate ‘flows’ is twofold. First, the mining boom of part of this intense West African mobility, but which have the last decade has led to an increase in informal arti- so far been analysed separately: labour mobility in artisanal mining sites along the Birimian belt in Senegal,

Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 235 Mali, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, and more ing as panners or petty traders in the mines. Though recently in the northern Sahel and Sahara in Mali and women, like men, seek financial autonomy (Brottem & Niger, with the result that the routes of miners and Ba, 2019; Werthmann, 2009) by undertaking short-term migrants are likely to overlap. Secondly, there is little circular moves to the gold mines, they are less likely, dialogue between the growing literature on artisanal as Dessertine argues (2013), to continue such a mobile mining and the literature on migration. Researchers in lifestyle on the long run. The trajectories examined in this both fields tend to use their own categories of ‘liveli- article—ranging from 3 to 10 years of travels—are, from hoods’ and ‘migration’ to refer to people on the move this perspective, typically male gendered. Taking the as either ‘miners’ or ‘migrants,’ whereas the lived expe- lens of these ‘mobility trajectories’ (Schapendonk, van rience of these men may relate to one or the other Liempt, Schwarz, & Steel, 2018), the article argues that of these categories at different points in their trajecto- these African men, who, paraphrasing Hui (2016), are ries. Furthermore, with the increasing criminalization of ‘sometimes migrants’ and ‘sometimes miners,’ primarily cross-border movements due to the externalization of seek to increase their mobility, which in turn, is increas- European borders into Africa (Andersson, 2014; Brachet, ingly hampered by the expansion of European migration 2018), the current context inevitably raises highly polit- control and repressive policies on the continent. ical questions such as whether artisanal mining has In making this argument, I draw on field research become a common source of funding for ‘irregular’ inter- conducted in 2020 in Mali and Guinea, telephone international migration routes out of Africa (e.g., Yonlihinza, views with male miners/migrants in North Africa and 2017). To avoid ambiguity, let me state at the outset that Europe, as well as on data from a series of surveys the answer developed in this article is no. However, the on migration to artisanal mining sites in West Africa actual overlaps between mining and migration routes conducted by IOM as part of the broader programme and the fact that ‘miners’ can sometimes be ‘migrants’ “Protection and Assistance to Vulnerable Migrants in and ‘migrants’ can sometimes be ‘miners’ nevertheless West and Central Africa.” The article begins with a discus- deserves sustained attention. In particular, because their sion on the notion of mobility trajectories (Schapendonk trajectories call into question certain assumptions in the et al., 2018) in relation to the migration decision-making literature on the decision to migrate, such as the identifi- framework, and highlights its relevance in capturing the cation of different stages in the ambition and capacities multiple constellations of movements that are charac- to migrate (Carling & Schewel, 2018; Haas, 2011). teristic of West Africa’s mobile ‘normality.’ Next, I draw From this point of view, a brief methodological note on IOM data to sketch the main patterns of mobility is important. The mobility profiles on which this study in the informal gold mining sector in order to iden- is based do not quantitatively represent a large share of tify where mining and migration routes overlap. Finally, male ‘miners’ or ‘migrants.’ However, they illustrate qual- I use in-depth interviews with seven miners/migrants itatively how different types of mobility intersect along to propose two main relationships between mining and the mobility trajectories of West African men, some- migration routes, which I call ‘mobility expansion’ and thing that the migration approach to ‘decision-making’ ‘refuge relationship.’ can hardly capture. As their narratives show, the elusive identification of a decision to migrate can, in their case, 2. Mobility and Migration in Mineralised West Africa obscure the processual adjustments in men’s search for livelihoods and social recognition, for which mobil- Although there is a recent trend to overcome certain ity is used within and outside West Africa. A second epistemological separations through the use of reflex- noteworthy point is the gendered aspect of the trajec- ivity (Dahinden, 2016) and mobility-based approaches tories scrutinized in this article. Neither migration nor (e.g., Moret, 2018; Schapendonk, 2020; Schapendonk, mining mobility are male prerogatives. As Hertrich and Bolay, & Dahinden, 2020), studies on mobility and migra- Lesclingand (2013) recall, labour mobility for the youth tion in and from Africa often demonstrate an epis- is equally important among young Malian women as it temological ambiguity inherent in the decoupling of is for men, yet they partake in different expectations approaches by researchers rooted either in livelihoods and projects. While male mobility is part of households’ and development research or in migration research. It is, economics and strengthens their family status, as will for example, revealing that cross-border movements be shown in the next section, female mobility is rather within the region tend to be labelled as mobile liveli- seen as a personal project geared towards acquiring life hoods and labour mobility (e.g., d’Errico & Di Giuseppe, skills more prone to be obtained in cities than in gold 2018), while cross-border movements across the Sahara mines (e.g. learning the national language or acquiring and beyond tend to be labelled as international migra- domestic ‘know how’). Yet, women represent 40% to tion (Adepoju, 2006). In fact, both often meet similar 50% of the workforce in informal gold mines (Huggins, criteria in terms of border crossing and time spent in Buss, & Rutherford, 2017). In terms of mobility how- another country, except that they face different ‘mobil- ever, women are more likely to be from neighbouring ity regimes’ (Glick Schiller & Salazar, 2013) and ‘migration villages from where they commute, and thus conciliate industries’ (Andersson, 2014; Cranston, Schapendonk, & domestic labour with generating cash incomes by work- Spaan, 2018).

Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 236 Yet these two approaches share the predominance physical presence, visits, remittances and, more gener- of the economic prism to explain why people move, at ally, the maintenance of social ties (Dessertine, in press; the expense of other factors, and therefore fail to explain Gaibazzi, 2015; Whitehouse, 2012). These antagonistic why people engage in mobility projects whose outcomes expectations have long been resolved by the circular are at best uncertain and at worst deadly (Smith, 2019). mobility of labour within and outside Africa (Amselle, Why move to an artisanal mining site knowing that the 1976; Manchuelle, 1997; Meillassoux, 1975). chances of becoming rich are so small compared to the But in a context of deagrarianisation, mass unemploy- risks of being injured, getting sick or dying in a col- ment, conflict-related violence and the increasing crim- lapsed shaft? Why move across the Sahara and possibly inalization of displacement, these age-prescribed jour- the Mediterranean knowing that the risks are so high? neys are increasingly difficult to achieve. As a result of Without downplaying economic factors, the anthropo- this condition of ‘involuntary immobility’ (Jónsson, 2011), logical record provides a relatively solid body of knowl- young men are likely to engage in relatively indetermi- edge about culturally embedded mobility practices in nate forms of ‘social navigation’ (Vigh, 2009) that involve West Africa that can help broaden the understanding of making and maintaining movements in uncertain set- how decisions to move are made. tings. This is manifested not only in the ‘turbulent tra- Without going into all the ethnological details for rea- jectories’ of irregular migration to Europe (Schapendonk, sons of conciseness, it is nonetheless useful to recall the 2012), but also in growing mobilization in war economies importance of social recognition, or the continuing strug- (Hoffman, 2011), the performance of migration in immo- gle to “produce personhood” (Comaroff & Comaroff, bility (Fioratta, 2015), or mobility within artisanal gold 2001, p. 273) and “avoid social death” (Comaroff & mines across the continent (Bredeloup, 1994; Dessertine, Comaroff, 2001, p. 274) in a wide range of African con- 2016), which may in turn hamper hopes for connected- texts. In the Mandé region, where most of my infor- ness among those who stayed (Gaibazzi, 2019). From mants come from, social identities are strongly marked the point of view of the trajectory of African men on by norms of gender and seniority, with contradictory the move, these different forms of mobility are likely to injunctions well encapsulated in the twin concepts of intermingle and overlap with one another without follow- fadenya and badenya (Bird & Kendall, 1980; the Mandé ing a precise roadmap. Consequently, these routes can region here refers to the Mandé speaking area includ- hardly be captured through concepts such as the ‘migra- ing Malinké, Bambara, Dioula, Mandinka, and Soninké tory journey’ with supposedly well-separated phases of language groups spread across Guinea, Mali, Norther preparation, travel, transit, arrival and settlement (see Côte d’Ivoire, the Gambia, and the South and East of Schapendonk et al., 2020). The approach to the mobil- Senegal; for more on the sociocultural organisation and ity trajectories adopted in this article is therefore better political history of this designation see Amselle, 1990; suited, as it leaves more room for notions such as incoher- Conrad & Frank, 1995). Drawing on the figure of the ence (Massa, 2018) or chance (Gladkova & Mazzucato, Mandé hero, they replicate the typical relations between 2017), to show that cross-border mobility within and out- classificatory brothers born to different mothers and side Africa does not necessarily result from a migration are used in everyday talk to qualify and attribute dif- project, nor is it necessarily conceived as ‘migration’ by ferent values to behaviours and actions. The fadenya, those undertaking those cross-border movements. because of the competition between collateral broth- In what follows, I begin by sketching how mining and ers, “is associated to centrifugal forces of disequilibrium: migration mobility overlap based on IOM data on mobil- envy, jealousy, competition, self-promotion—anything ity flows in West African gold mines; I will also use data tending to spin the actor out of his established social from Flow Monitoring Points at two sites where mining force field” (Bird & Kendall, 1980, p. 15). In contrast, and migration routes to North Africa/Europe intersect. the “badenya is associated with centripetal forces of society: submission to authority, stability, cooperation, 3. Overlapping Migration and Mining Routes those qualities which pull the individual back into the social mass” (Bird & Kendall, 1980, p. 15), that is, obe- The continued expansion of artisanal mining in West dience to norms. The fadenya and badenya can there- Africa (Hilson & Garforth, 2012) has recently taken a turn fore be described as the two sides of masculinity, each with a new series of gold rushes in the Sahel and Sahara enacting apparently contradictive moral principles and (Chevrillon-Guibert, Gagnol, & Magrin, 2019). While tra- temporalities of action. Young men are thus expected ditional mining areas were mainly concentrated along to empower themselves and become adults by engag- the Birimian belt in the southern Sahel and tended to ing in adventurous endeavours (Bredeloup, 2008), while overlap with rural areas of ‘migration departure’ as for- at the same time contributing socially and economically mulated by the IOM, these new mining areas overlap to the perpetuation of the home village and the house- with what migration research calls ‘transit places’ along hold through their presence. The home village, where the central Mediterranean route, such as Kidal in Mali or lineage genealogies are enacted and reproduced, and Agadez in Niger. where social personality is ultimately granted, embod- A quick comparison of two recent maps illustrates ies ideals of permanence, which are realised through this point. As can be seen below (Figure 1), the largest

Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 237 Figure 1. Map of migration routes. Notes: The designations employed and the presentation of material on the map reproduced in this article do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the IOM; all data are based on estimates. Source: IOM (2020). flows recorded at the Flow Monitoring Points of the ous transitions and temporary settlements between suc- IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix pass through Mali cessive mines, depending on opportunities (Bryceson, and Niger, whose northern areas are also the scene Bosse Jønsson, & Clarke Shand, 2020) and evictions from of some of the current major Saharan-Sahelian gold workplaces due to illegal operations (Bolay, 2014, 2016a; rushes (Figure 2) and where some ‘transit’ sites such as Dessertine, 2019). Inhalid or Agadez are located next to intense artisanal Recent studies conducted by IOM on gold mining mining operations. In addition, the countries with the sites in Senegal (n = 221), Guinea (n = 705) and Mali largest number of potential migrants (Mali, Guinea, Côte (n = 436) are useful in assessing miners’ types of mobil- d’Ivoire and Senegal) are also countries where artisanal ity and contextualizing them for possible future migra- mining is a major activity, with an estimated 500,000 min- tion. All three studies highlight the important mix of ers in Mali, 250,000 in Guinea, 500,000 in Côte d’Ivoire nationalities in the sub-region, with almost half of the and between 50,000 and 100,000 in eastern Senegal miners’ population coming from neighbouring countries (Alliance for Responsible Mining, 2020). (Guinea: 42%; Senegal: 72%; Mali: 52%), underlining the intensity of movements between mining sites spread 3.1. Overlapping Routes in the Southern Sahel across national borders. Moreover, while miners, who are on average under 30 years old at all sites, stayed Mobility in informal artisanal mining occurs in different for periods ranging from two weeks to three months patterns. Mining is most often undertaken as a com- in Guinea and up to a year in Senegal, they generally plementary activity to agriculture, with alternating dry had no longer-term prospects. The Malian study, which and rainy seasons (Cartier & Bürge, 2011). In such con- is more detailed, also indicates a high turnover rate figurations, most miners are locals or come temporar- between mining sites, with 64% of the miners having vis- ily from other locations before returning to agriculture. ited and worked in more than two mines successively. However, for some miners, gold mining turned into their In another manifestation of what could be called the main activity. For example, out of the 54 respondents transnational space of artisanal mining, the vast majority with whom I conducted network interviews on their of prospective miners had obtained information prior to mobility, 83% had kept mining as their main activity for their visit from other artisanal miners. It is also interest- more than four years and 63% had moved outside their ing to note that 21% of respondents in Mali had initially country of residence to mine gold. This second config- obtained information from migration brokers, suggest- uration, on which this article focuses, involves continuing that some of them may have first entered the mines

Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 238 Figure 2. The artisanal front of the gold pioneers in the Saharo-Sahelian space. Note: Reproduced with authors’ permission. Source: Chevrillon-Guibert et al. (2019, p. 196). to collect money to fund an extra-continental migration who are under economic pressure and who have very project later on. Finally, in terms of their prospects for few other means to follow cultural scripts of construct- future travel, while most respondents planned to return ing adulthood. home or to continue mining in the region, 9% in Guinea and 7% in Mali did mention Europe as another possi- 3.2. Overlapping Routes in the Northern Sahel ble destination, but only 1% clearly saw mining as a step in a migration project. In an interview (20 February While IOM has conducted research in the ‘traditional’ 2020, Bamako), IOM researchers also added that the vast artisanal mining areas—the southern areas in Figure 2— majority of respondents who were not seasonal farmer- what the research does not address is the current miners did not know what their next destination would Saharan–Sahelian gold rush (Chevrillon-Guibert et al., be. Thus, although prospective miners may have general 2019), which has led to the emergence of a number of medium-term objectives (to return home with capital, new informal gold mines in northern Mali and Niger (see to pursue mining routes, or less frequently to cross the Figure 2). Due to the political instability in the region and Sahara at a later stage), the precise steps to reach them the presence of several extremist groups, information are largely undetermined and subject to the opportuni- is still extremely scarce. Recent research in Mali (Bolay, ties they may encounter along the way. in press a) indicates that, in contrast to the ‘traditional’ To summarise the main conclusions of the IOM stud- areas in the south, workers tend to come mainly from ies, artisanal gold mines in the southern areas appear Niger, Chad and Sudan—where this new ‘pioneer front’ as a circulatory space (Tarrius, 1993) made up of ever- originated (Chevrillon-Guibert et al., 2019). Similarly, in changing destinations spread across national borders. the Nigerian sites in the Aïr and Ténéré regions, reached This space supports the mobile livelihoods of young men from Agadez, Grégoire and Gagnol (2017) also observed

Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 239 that workers came mainly from these same countries, places (mines and places of ‘transit’) in shaping their including many ‘repatriates’ from Libya. However, with future movements. the increasing discharge of the repression of overseas To reach out to men who combined or had combined migration to Algerian and Libyan authorities (Brachet, mining and migration mobilities in their trajectory, I con- 2018), a growing number of sub-Saharan Africans have tacted informants I knew from previous research who been expelled from Algeria and Libya to the Nigerian themselves had such a profile, or who could put me in and Malian borders. For example, in August 2019, the contact with others. I took the opportunity of a short IOM registered 417 persons returned to the Nigerian bor- field research trip in Mali in January and February 2020 ders by Algerian authorities. This trend was reinforced to meet two of them in person—Kader was temporar- by the stricter enforcement of borders’ closure due to ily in Bamako before returning to the mining area of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to the confinement Kenieba, and Bo had stopped traveling and was now set- of deported populations in IOM camps (Afane, 2020), tled in Bamako. The other interviews were conducted from which many have escaped. In the absence of eco- by phone and WhatsApp during the same research stay, nomic relief opportunities, the current situation also often in several shots because of connection losses or raises the question of whether the deportees might not cuts due to empty credit. While these conditions some- end up looking for livelihoods in the nearby mines (Afane, how complicated the flow of the discussion, they never- 2020). Although there is currently not enough informa- theless allowed for an exchange with people who were tion to support this hypothesis, research in the region either in another country at this time or in remote loca- of Kidal (Mali) and Agadez (Niger), which are both cen- tions in Mali. These trajectory interviews consisted in tral nodes for migration routes and departure points to retracing the travels of the informants from their first artisanal gold mines, suggests that the local migration departure to elicit the reasons that motivated their tran- industry has already begun to adapt to this overlap of sitions from one place to another. For the analysis below, mines and migration routes. For example, transporters I selected those turning points where migrants became in Kidal (Bolay, in press a) and in Agadez (Pellerin, 2017) miners or miners became migrants and paid attention have started to serve the routes to the Saharan artisanal to the reasons that they gave for undertaking a new mines, in addition to their usual transport of goods and phase of mobility. In addition, I also took into considera- irregular migrants across the borders. tion the temporal ordering of mobilities framed as min- While IOM surveys provide a useful quantitative ing and as migration, as well as their role in relation to ‘snapshot’ to identify points of overlap between mining the other along broader patterns of movement in the and migration routes, they give no indication of how region. This framework made clear the theme of escape these different forms of mobility intersect along peo- as a fruitful transversal descriptor to explain the relation ple’s trajectories, nor how individuals move from one between phases of immobility and mobility, both in min- activity and destination to another. The following section ing and migratory contexts. It also helped define the rela- addresses these issues qualitatively on the basis of in- tion between mining and migration either as an expan- depth interviews with men whose trajectories involved sion of mobility, or as a refuge determined by the con- both mobility in the gold mines and across the Sahara frontation to Europe’s intra African borders. For detailed (and possibly beyond). information see Table 1.

4. Disentangling Mining and Migratory Mobility 4.1. Departures: Aspirations and Capacities to Move, Not to Migrate This section is based on seven in-depth interviews with men, all under the age of thirty when they first left their All the stories collected share a similar starting point, rural homes. These men represent relatively well the namely the context of widespread poverty and lack of very diverse mix of nationalities present in artisanal min- opportunities that characterised the respondents’ lives ing in West Africa, with three of them from Guinea, two when they left their place of residence in rural areas. from Mali, one from Niger and one from Nigeria. They To contextualize these stories, age is an important index, also represent one specific type of engagement in min- as all but one of the respondents were unmarried and ing, which could be coined after Hilson and Garforth did not have children at that time. Their status as young (2012, p. 353) as “full-time miners” whose mobility is adults helps to explain why ‘poverty,’ a condition to not dictated by agricultural cycles. My aim here is to dis- which they all refer, is not expressed in terms of material entangle the mining and migratory mobilities along the deprivation, but rather in what could be described after trajectory of these itinerant miners in order to under- Sen (1993) as a ‘lack of ability’ to carry out the projects stand them in relation to each other. To do this, I pay expected at their age, such as being recognised for their particular attention to the general objectives and rea- social and economic contribution to the well-being of sons given by the miners/migrants for leaving their home the lu (large household) or starting a family. As other place as well as the way they adapted along the way, to researchers have shown, social and geographical immo- the temporality of successive phases and forms of mobil- bility is indeed often perceived as two sides of the ity (and immobility), and to the role of these different same coin among youths (Gaibazzi, 2015). ‘Involuntary

Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 240 Table 1. Informants selected for in-depth trajectory interviews (the names used are pseudonyms). Overseas migration Temporal relation Location at Years as a project at the mining to migration the moment of Medium of Informant Nationality of travel time of departure labels the interview the interview Ali Guinea 6 no mining, migration, mining Guinea Phone James Guinea 8 no mining, migration, mining Mali Phone Bo Mali 10 no mining, migration, home Mali In person Ibrahim Guinea 3 no mining, migration Italy Phone Moussa Mali 6 no mining, migration, mining Senegal Phone Kader Niger 5 yes migration, mining Mali In person Felix Nigeria 11 yes migration, mining Guinea Phone

immobility,’ as Jónsson (2011) has put it, can lead to a contributes to the migranticisation (Dahinden, 2016) of sense of ‘uselessness’ (Fioratta, 2015) that young men people, routes and places, and thus shapes mobilities in seek to escape by various means. One of the most acces- Africa and beyond. The following section examines how sible options in this region being the mines, it is a fre- the phases of mining and migratory mobilities intersect quent first destination. along the trajectories of miners/migrants. For example, James explains how he “remained seated most of the time, sometimes doing small jobs for 4.2. Intersecting Phases of Mobility along the family” when, according to him, “in reality [he] had Miners/Migrants’ Trajectories: Indebtedness, Escape nothing to do.” Similarly, Ali expresses that he was sim- and Refuge ply “discouraged by the lack of opportunities” and that “instead of waiting, [he] preferred to go and find money While most of my informants began their travels with on his own.” In this context, mobility rather than a spe- age-related aspirations to earn money and social auton- cific migration project, is often a goal in itself. Following omy in order to progress along prescribed steps towards Carling and Schewel’s (2018) distinction between aspira- male adulthood, their travel experiences were rarely cor- tions and capacities to migrate, one could say that my related with financial gain or greater freedom. On the informants had the aspiration to move (socially and geo- contrary, they regularly found themselves captive, both graphically) and not the capacities to migrate, in par- socially and physically, in situations from which they ticular to Europe. In a way, they manifest Carling and tried to escape by resorting to new phases of mobil- Schewel’s (2018) argument in the other direction: Not ity (for a discussion in the European context, see having the capacities to migrate, most of them did not Schapendonk, 2020). Such situations echo Van der Velde initially develop the aspiration to do so either, preferring and van Naerssen’s (2011) argument that decisions to to engage in ‘adventurous’ travels across the continent. undertake (cross-border) travels are highly volatile and With regard to what my informants considered to depend on specific situations along the trajectories (see be their point of departure, only Felix and Kader had also Crawley, Düvell, Jones, McMahon, & Sigona, 2018). designed their trips to resettle in another country, in Below I briefly discuss three such typical situations in their case a European country. All the others had seen gold mines, migration routes, and border areas. travelling as a way of looking for money and seeing dif- With regard to informal gold mining first, the social ferent places, with the firm intention of returning to organization of work is strongly structured by what their home place afterwards. Although this ideal pat- Panella has called ‘worlds of debts’ (2010), in which tern is rarely achieved, it nevertheless manifests what access to work, housing and gold itself is intertwined Dessertine (in press) calls the ‘topocentric’ conception with supportive and dependent relationships based on of space that prevails in West African societies. Whereas the principles of friendship and patronage (Bolay, 2016b; Eurocentric sedentarist epistemologies define space by Grätz, 2004). In their quest for financial autonomy and its limits materialised by borders (Molland, 2018), West freedom of movement away from the fabara, young African epistemologies define space by its core, in this men who engage in mining work inevitably link them- context the place of dwelling or fabara in the Mande selves, to varying degrees, to such types of relationships (literally the place of the father), and its expansion by which, if carefully managed, can enable them to sup- mobility practices which do not question the central- port their mobile lifestyle, or otherwise can immobilize ity of the fabara. Mobility, including cross-border mobil- them against their will. Second, international migration ity, across the Sahara or the Mediterranean is, from is also often made possible by the mobilization of com- this point of view, rarely conceived as migration, in the plex patterns of support. These relations of social and sense of resettlement towards the creation of a new financial indebtedness blur the notions of “voluntary core. However, the expansion of the mobility regime of or autonomous choice” in migration decision-making Europe’s borders in Africa is an empirical reality that (O’Connell Davidson, 2013, p. 177). While this has been

Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 241 well-documented at the presumed ‘departure stage’ Algeria or Libya. As he himself was “too tired,” he took (e.g., Konseiga, 2007), people on the move are in fact con- the IOM transport to Bamako, and from there returned tinuously engaged in ‘network work’ (Schapendonk et al., to the mines in Kenieba (Mali) in order not to return 2020) imbued with moralities of exchange and depen- home to Guinea where his dispute was still unresolved. dency to gain support along the way, thus contribut- While these two men inadvertently encountered the ing to shape their future movement possibilities. Finally, repressive migration regime during their mobility trajec- the European discharge of part of its migration control tories and then found refuge in the mines, Felix’s trajec- and repression apparatus to African states and interna- tory highlights a reverse enterprise. Felix left Nigeria with tional organisations (Andersson, 2014; Brachet, 2016) the clear intention of passing through Libya to Europe. has been accompanied by an increase in legal and ille- After a failed attempt to reach Italy, Felix was briefly gal practices of detention (cf. in Libyan prisons and IOM imprisoned in Libya where he suffered daily police vio- camps) and deportation (from Algeria or Libya to Niger) lence. When he was released, Felix was too scared to of ‘irregular migrants.’ These three modalities of move- attempt a new passage and thought only of leaving Libya. ment conditioning, related to specific places, are regu- In his case, it was the harsh encounter with Europe’s larly at stake along the trajectories of miners/migrants. intra-African borders and the discomfort of “going home As will be shown below, these modalities play contra- with nothing,” which would mean not repaying the moral dictory roles, as they all have the power to trap indi- debt of his absence, that led him to continue his travels. viduals or to lead them to expand their movements by First he went to Niger and then to Burkina Faso, Mali and strategically engaging in new phases of mobility in order Guinea where he spent most of his time working and trav- to escape. elling from mine to mine, which seemed to him to be the Ali’s story illustrates the first modality well. After most accessible livelihood option away from home. managing to leave the harsh work of mining to become Finally, it is interesting to look at the story of Ibrahim, a small itinerant gold trader, Ali was robbed of a week’s the only informant who actually crossed over to Europe worth of work plus the financial advances from his spon- and got to Italy. Paradoxically, Ibrahim states clearly from sor, a trader based in Siguiri (Guinea). Feeling “disori- the outset that “[he] never decided to emigrate [but he] ented” and knowing that he would not be able to repay continued to travel and took advantage of the opportu- his sponsor, Ali decided to leave not only the mines but nities that presented themselves,” until he found himself also the country: in Libya and later in Italy. Like Ali and James, Ibrahim had already travelled through several countries (Ivory Coast, I decided to leave everything and continue the adven- Mali, Liberia, Guinea), spending most of his time working ture. I had no idea about migration at first. But in gold mines, and occasionally also in diamond mines. as I had to find money and couldn’t stay [there], He decided to extend his mobility to Tunisia after real- I decided to go and see in Libya. I wanted to work izing that “mining is too hard work if you don’t have there, but it’s difficult for us [sub-Saharan Africans] a good position yourself. You’ll always have something because we can’t find good jobs. I did some painting at the end of the day, but it’s never enough to move for a while and it was good….A lot of people want you forward.” So, he planned to join a friend of his who to move [to Europe] there. I didn’t plan that myself. had been living in Tunisia for several years, with the But we were caught with other [sub-Saharan] Africans idea of building up capital and later investing it in min- and brought to Niger anyway. (Ali, 17 February 2020, ing operations. A few weeks after Ibrahim got to Tunisia, phone interview) his friend left for Libya with the aim of moving to Italy, but without success. When Ibrahim learnt that his friend After some hesitation, he joined his family in Macenta had been imprisoned before returning to Guinea “with (Guinea) where he obtained support to pay back his spon- almost nothing,” Ibrahim curiously decided to “try his sor and resumed itinerant mining to pay back his family. luck.” As he says, “I hadn’t really imagined being so close James’ story shares very similar traits. Like Ali, after a to Europe. I thought that, even if I hadn’t worked towards few years of travelling to various gold mines, he suddenly this aim, since I was there and that my friend had left, decided to leave Guinea because of a family conflict over I could try it too.” When we spoke, Ibrahim was detained his own marriage. He travelled to Mali and Algeria to join in Italy and waiting for his asylum application to be pro- a friend who was working in Morocco. Faced with diffi- cessed. However, he had already decided that it was not culties entering Morocco, he stayed in Algeria for more worth waiting for the outcome of the procedure and was than a year, working in construction, until one night the already planning to travel to Spain as soon as he had the police arrested him and other sub-Saharan workers and chance, as one of his friends had assured him that he expelled them 30 kilometres from the border with Niger. would help him find work there. He and others were rescued by IOM buses which took The four vignettes presented above have in common them first to Arlit and then to Agadez. In order not to be that the trajectories of their protagonists successively forcibly sent back to Mali or Guinea, some of his travel cross mining and migration routes. Their travel decisions companions escaped from the camp, allegedly to find are less concerned with specific destinations than with work in the nearby mines and pay for passage back to contingencies linked to the contexts in which they are

Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 242 taken, and which young men often seek to escape by cheap and unprotected workforce. Cynically enough, the further expanding their mobility. When they travel to product of their labour (gold) finds its way into licit mar- places labelled as migration routes, they inevitably face kets through complex global supply chains that cross cut the violence that Europe’s externalised borders exert on the realm of the formal and the informal, the licit and travellers from sub-Saharan Africa, regardless of whether the illicit (Bolay, in press b; Verbrugge & Geenen, 2020), they want to migrate to Europe or not. Gold mines play and, as has been well demonstrated (Pieth, 2019), allows a more ambivalent role in their trajectories. On the one intermediaries and end producers partly based in Europe hand, the transnational circulation of territories that to make significant profits. gold mines constitute socialises young men to cross borders in precarious conditions, which can sometimes drive Acknowledgments them to continue their journeys further when they had not originally planned to. On the other hand, with virtu- This research was funded by the Swiss Subsaharan Africa ally non-existent barriers to entry and a geography that Migration Network (S-SAM; project Artisanal Miners) intersects with migration routes, gold mines—despite and supported by SNF (Project No. 173354). The author the prevailing harsh working conditions—also seem to warmly thanks Didier Ruedin who coordinated the act as spaces of refuge for men who are forcibly expelled Network and the thematic issue, as well as the two at Europe’s externalized borders. anonymous reviewers for their generous comments. I am grateful to Sandaly Kourouma, and the IOM office in 5. Conclusion Bamako for their help.

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Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 235–246 245 IN: Indiana University Press. from https://theconversation.com/as-more-people- Yonlihinza, I. A. (2017, May 15). As more people flock flock-to-nigers-gold-mines-economic-boon-may- to Niger’s gold mines, economic boon may become become-a-new-migration-risk-75417 a new migration risk. The Conversation. Retrieved

About the Author

Matthieu Bolay is a Social Anthropologist and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies, Geneva (Switzerland). He has expertise in the politics of extrac- tion and his research lies at the crossroads of migration, labour, politics and the law.

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