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World-Making at the Margins
Baay Faal Practice as Affective Tethering in Barcelona
In: African DiasporaAbstract
Transnational social networks are vital to West Africans in managing relationships but also in ascertaining viable ways of being and belonging in the diaspora. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, this paper examines the ‘Baay Faal paradox’ to address sites of contention in West African endeavours to bind a sense of self to transnational social networks. I propose urban world-making practices that sustain connections to transnational social networks from the margins of these relations signal what I am calling ‘affective tethering.’ The term ‘tethering’ in my analysis foregrounds an imagined distance between normative models of practice and purported deviations that result in precarious, unstable and patchy connections to transnational social networks. This approach sheds light on the complex relationship between a person’s sense of self and the transnational social networks that inform ideas of personhood in the context of global mobility and settlement.
Résumé
Les réseaux sociaux transnationaux jouent un rôle essentiel dans la manière dont les Africains de l’ Ouest gèrent leurs relations sociales tout en leur permettant de disposer de moyens viables pour exister et faire partie de la diaspora. s’ appuyant sur des recherches de terrain ethnographiques menées à Barcelone, la métropole catalane, cet article étudie le ‘paradoxe du Baay Faal’ qui aborde les espaces de conflits dans les activités ouest-africaines tout en donnant aux réseaux sociaux transnationaux une identité propre. Je défends l’ idée que les pratiques urbaines de fabrication de rapports au monde qui permettent de créer des liens avec les réseaux sociaux transnationaux à la marge de ces relations révèlent ce que j’ appelle ‘l’ attachement affectif’. Dans mon analyse, le terme d’ ‘attachement affectif’ instaure une distance imaginaire entre les modèles normatifs de pratiques et de déviations supposées qui se traduisent par des liens précaires, instables et inégaux avec les réseaux sociaux transnationaux. Cette approche met en lumière la relation complexe entre le sentiment d’ identité d’ une personne et les réseaux sociaux transnationaux qui donnent une idée d’ identité individuelle dans le contexte de mobilité et de migration mondialisées.
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World-Making at the Margins
Baay Faal Practice as Affective Tethering in Barcelona
In: African DiasporaAbstract
Transnational social networks are vital to West Africans in managing relationships but also in ascertaining viable ways of being and belonging in the diaspora. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, this paper examines the ‘Baay Faal paradox’ to address sites of contention in West African endeavours to bind a sense of self to transnational social networks. I propose urban world-making practices that sustain connections to transnational social networks from the margins of these relations signal what I am calling ‘affective tethering.’ The term ‘tethering’ in my analysis foregrounds an imagined distance between normative models of practice and purported deviations that result in precarious, unstable and patchy connections to transnational social networks. This approach sheds light on the complex relationship between a person’s sense of self and the transnational social networks that inform ideas of personhood in the context of global mobility and settlement.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 265 | 98 | 0 |
| Full Text Views | 13 | 6 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 12 | 10 | 2 |