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Abstract
When analysing migration processes, particular problems arise due to the phenomenon of migration rarely being addressed holistically – largely because of its complexity. This is evident in the study of South–North migrations, where the majority of existing research has been through an economic perspective often neglecting the sociocultural dimensions. In this article, we consider the situation of men and women in West Africa who do not migrate despite living in communities saturated by intense emigration to European or other Northern countries. We review the existing literature on ‘those left behind’ in general, and more specifically in the West African context and then, based on a case study in Senegal, we examine the processes that lead some people to stay behind, while others migrate. In this article, we discuss and deconstruct the label ‘left-behind’ as found in the literature and discuss it based on qualitative interviews conducted in a community in Senegal.
Acknowledgements
The 2007 study was jointly financed by an internal grant from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ottawa and a Nuffield small grant for social sciences (The impacts of out-migration on those left behind: changing family dynamics in small town Senegal). We are also thankful to Duncan Fulton who did the translation from French to English.
Notes
[1] One could also talk of a ‘mobile habitus’, a term borrowed from Mirjam De Bruijn (Citation2010).
[2] A number of parents told us about their desire to see their children develop a project locally rather than see them leave. In addition, many mothers have grouped together, forming an association to combat clandestine emigration by canoe.