Social Mobility and Spatialised Slowness
Imagining ‘Success’ among Sierra Leoneans Living in France
In: African DiasporaAbstract
This article analyses the individual aspirations of Sierra Leoneans living in France in relation to normative expectations related to mobility. It argues that aspirations and expectations are expressions of spatialized forms of social becoming situated within broader norms concerning socially-valued forms of mobility. Aspirations to social mobility link up distinct places in a fragmented transnational field, transform them as value-laden spaces, and inform migrants’ assessment of their own trajectory within them. Individual aspirations are formulated with regard to spaces migrants have left, spaces they live in, and spaces they would like to reach. Sierra Leoneans living in France have reached a ‘destination country’ and yet, do not experience their situation as the ideal migratory path. Their achievements are measured with regard to expectations of social mobility as imagined in English-speaking spaces, thereby reinforcing the narrative of mobility and the persistence of local idioms of ‘success’ based on historical transnational connections.
Résumé
Cet article présente une analyse des aspirations de migrants sierra-léonais vivant en France, en tant que produits des attentes collectives et des objectifs normatifs liés à la migration internationale. Les aspirations sont des expressions de formes spatialisées de devenir situées dans le cadre plus général de normes déterminées par un contexte culturel. Pour les Sierra-Léonais, la réussite sociale est imaginée dans un « ailleurs » qui nécessite un déplacement spatial. Les aspirations individuelles sont géographiquement situées et formulées au regard de destinations spécifiques, qui reflètent l’ existence de connexions transnationales. Ainsi, les Sierra-Léonais vivant en France, bien qu’ ils aient atteint un « pays de destination », ne vivent pas leur situation comme un parcours migratoire idéal. Ils évaluent leurs accomplissements à l’ étalon des attentes de mobilité sociale imaginées dans les pays anglophones. Ce processus révèle la persistance des imaginaires locaux de la réussite sociale dans le contexte migratoire.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Bal, Ellen and Roos Willems 2014. ‘Introduction: Aspiring Migrants, Local Crises and the Imagination of Futures ‘Away From Home’.’ Identities, 21 (3): 249–258.
-
Bal, Ellen and Roos Willems 2014. ‘Yearning for Faraway Places: The Construction of Migration Desires Among Young and Educated Bangladeshis in Dhaka.’ Identities, 21 (3): 275–289.
-
Bedert, Maarten (this issue)
-
Carling, Jørgen. 2002. ‘Migration in the Age of Involuntary Immobility: Theoretical Reflections and Cape Verdean Experiences.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 28 (1): 5–42.
-
Carling, Jørgen and Francis L. Collins 2018. ‘Aspiration, Desire and Drivers of Migration.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44 (6): 909–926.
-
Carling, Jørgen and Kerilyn Schewel 2018. ‘Revisiting Aspiration and Ability in International Migration.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44 (6): 945–963.
-
Coe, Cati and Julia Pauli 2020. ‘Migration and Social Class in Africa: Class-Making Projects in Translocal Social Fields.’Africa Today, 66 (3&4): 3–19.
-
Collins, Francis L. 2018. ‘Desire as a Theory for Migration Studies: Temporality, Assemblage and Becoming in the Narratives of Migrants.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44 (6): 964–980.
-
Crapanzano, Vincent. 2004. Imaginative Horizons: An Essay in Literary-Philosophical Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
-
de Haas, Hein. 2010. ‘The Internal Dynamics of Migration Processes. A Theoretical Inquiry.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36 (10): 1587–1617.
-
di Nunzio, Marco. 2015. ‘Embracing Uncertainty: Young People on the Move in Addis Ababa’s Inner City.’ In Ethnographies of uncertainty in Africa, edited by Elizabeth Cooper and David Pratten. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 149–172.
-
Enria, Luisa (this issue)
-
Feldman-Savelsberg, Pamela. 2020. ‘Class Performances: Children’s Parties and the Reproduction of Social Class among Diasporic Cameroonians.’ Africa Today, 66 (3&4): 21–43.
-
Ferguson, James. 2006. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham: Duke University Press.
-
Frye, Margaret. 2012. ‘Bright Futures in Malawi’s New Dawn: Educational Aspirations as Assertions of Identity.’ American Journal of Sociology, 117 (6): 1565–1624.
-
Gaibazzi, Paolo. 2014. ‘Home as Transit: Would-be Migrants and Immobility in Gambia.’ In: The challenge of the threshold: Border closures and migration movements in Africa, edited by Jocelyne Streiff-Fénart and Aurelia Segatti., Lanham: Lexington Books. Pp. 163–176.
-
Glick Schiller Nina and Noel Salazar 2013. ‘Regimes of Mobility across the Globe.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 39 (2): 183–200.
-
Graw, Knut and Samuli Schielke 2013. ‘Introduction: Reflections on Migratory Expectations in Africa and Beyond.’ In: The Global Horizon: Expectations of Migration in Africa and the Middle East, edited by Knut Graw and Samuli Schielke. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Pp. 7–22.
-
Hage, Ghassan. 2009. Waiting out the Crisis: On Stuckedness and Governmentality. In Waiting, edited by Ghassan Hage. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Pp. 97–106.
-
Jacobsen, Christine M. and Marry-Anne Karlsen. 2021. Introduction: Unpacking the Temporalities of Irregular Migration. In Waiting and the Temporalities of Irregular Migration, edited by Christine M. Jacobsen, Marry-Anne Karlsen and Shahram Khosravi. London and New York: Routledge: Pp. 1–20.
-
Jónsson, Gunvor. 2008. Migration Aspirations and Immobility in a Malian Soninke Village. Working Paper, 10. Oxford: International Migration Institute.
-
Kandel, William and Douglas S. Massey 2002. ‘The Culture of Mexican Migration: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis.’ Social Forces, 80 (3): 981–1004.
-
Kea, Pamela J. 2020. ‘Reproducing Middle-Class Subjectivities: Educational Migration, Transnationalism, and British Nigerian Youth.’ Africa Today, 66 (3&4): 67–86.
-
King, Russell and Ronald Skeldon 2010. ‘ ‘Mind the Gap!’ Integrating Approaches to Internal and International Migration.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36 (10): 1619–1646.
-
Kleist, Nauja. 2018. ‘Introduction: Studying Hope and Uncertainty in African Migration.’ In Hope and Uncertainty in Contemporary African Migration, edited by Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorsen. New York: Routledge. Pp. 1–20.
-
Kleist, Nauja and Dorte Thorsen (eds.) 2018. Hope and Uncertainty in Contemporary African Migration. New York: Routledge.
-
Kobelinsky, Carolina. 2010. L’ Accueil des Demandeurs d’ Asile. Une Ethnographie de l’ Attente. Paris: Le Cygne.
-
Le Page, Robert B. and Andrée Tabouret-Keller 2006 (1985). Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. B-Fernelmont: EME.
-
Lentz, Carola. 2016. African Middle Classes: Lesson from Transnational Studies and a Research Agenda. In The Rise of Africa’s Middle Class, edited by Henning Melber. London: Zed Books. Pp. 17–53
-
Levitt, Peggy and Nina Glick Schiller 2004. ‘Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society.’ International Migration Review, 38 (3): 1002–1039.
-
Lubkemann, Stephen C. 2005. ‘The Moral Economy of Nonreturn among Socially Diverted Labor Migrants from Portugal and Mozambique.’ In: Migration and Economy. Global and Local Dynamics, edited by Lillian Trager. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Pp. 257–287.
-
Lubkemann, Stephen C. 2009. ‘Diasporicity and Its Discontents: Generation and Fragmented Historicity in the Liberian Transnational Field.’ Diaspora, 18 (1): 208–227.
-
Lubkemann, Stephen C. 2018. ‘The Lack of Liberty Drove Us There. Spatialized Instantiations of Hope and Contested Diasporan Identity in the Liberian-American Transnational Field (1810–2010).’ In: Hope and Uncertainty in Contemporary African Migration, edited by Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorsen. New York: Routledge. Pp. 76–93.
-
Ménard, Anaïs. 2015. Beyond Autochthony Discourses. Sherbro Identity and the (Re-)Construction of Social and National Cohesion in Sierra Leone. PhD diss., Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
-
Ménard, Anaïs. 2018. ‘Dynamics of inclusion and exclusion related to a creole language: “Krio” as an ambivalent semiotic register in present-day Sierra Leone.’ In: Creolization and Pidginization in Contexts of Postcolonial Diversity, edited by Jacqueline Knörr and Wilson Trajano Filho. Leiden: Brill. Pp. 209–229.
-
Ménard, Anaïs and Maarten Bedert (this issue)
-
Murphy, William P. 1981. ‘The Rhetorical Management of Dangerous Knowledge in Kpelle Brokerage.’ American Ethnologist, 8 (4): 667–685.
-
Piot, Charles D. 2019. The Fixer. Visa Lottery Chronicles. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
-
Scheibelhofer, Elisabeth. 2018. ‘Shifting Migration Aspirations in Second Modernity.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44 (6): 999–1014.
-
Tonkin, Elizabeth. 1981. ‘Model and Ideology: Dimensions of Being Civilised in Liberia.’ In: The Structure of Folk Models, edited by Ladislav Holy and Milan Stuchlik. London: Academic Press. Pp. 305–330.
-
Vigh, Henrik. 2009. Wayward Migration: ‘On Imagined Futures and Technological Voids.’ Ethnos, 74 (1): 91–109.
-
Vigh, Henrik. 2018. ‘Displaced Utopia: on Marginalisation, Migration and Emplacement in Bissau.’ Identities, 25 (2): 192–209.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 332 | 118 | 3 |
| Full Text Views | 26 | 7 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 39 | 12 | 0 |
Social Mobility and Spatialised Slowness
Imagining ‘Success’ among Sierra Leoneans Living in France
In: African DiasporaAbstract
This article analyses the individual aspirations of Sierra Leoneans living in France in relation to normative expectations related to mobility. It argues that aspirations and expectations are expressions of spatialized forms of social becoming situated within broader norms concerning socially-valued forms of mobility. Aspirations to social mobility link up distinct places in a fragmented transnational field, transform them as value-laden spaces, and inform migrants’ assessment of their own trajectory within them. Individual aspirations are formulated with regard to spaces migrants have left, spaces they live in, and spaces they would like to reach. Sierra Leoneans living in France have reached a ‘destination country’ and yet, do not experience their situation as the ideal migratory path. Their achievements are measured with regard to expectations of social mobility as imagined in English-speaking spaces, thereby reinforcing the narrative of mobility and the persistence of local idioms of ‘success’ based on historical transnational connections.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 332 | 118 | 3 |
| Full Text Views | 26 | 7 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 39 | 12 | 0 |