Lines across the desert: mobile phone use and mobility in the context of trans-Saharan migration

Abstract

In West and Northern Africa, mobile phone coverage has been expanding parallely to increased attempts by Africans to migrate overland to Europe. This paper explores possible links between the two phenomena, looking specifically into the role of mobile phones in trans-Saharan migration. It provides a first detailed description of the telecommunication processes underlying contemporary trans-Saharan migration. An analytical framework is presented that helps to explain how mobile phones facilitate migration by interacting with the social and spatial factors shaping migrants' mobility. By drawing on this framework and fieldwork conducted among Congolese migrants in Morocco, it is shown that the expansion of the communication infrastructure is, on the one hand, only one of several factors that have turned the region into a more “transitable” space. On the other hand, the use of mobile phones is demonstrated to be central to the migration process: migrants draw on the unprecedented accessibility of contacts equipped with mobile phones to tie together novel, geographically expansive networks. Phones are also shown to be used by migrants' “helpers” for the purpose of internal coordination.

Thomas Molony is the accepting Guest Editor for this article.

Keywords:

• mobile phones
• migration
• communication
• Sahara
• migrant network

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the University of Oxford's African Studies Centre, St Anne's College and Microsoft Research for supporting work on this paper. He is grateful to Dr Oliver Bakewell of IMI, Oxford University, Joris Schapendonk of Nijmegen University, Anjula Semmens and two anonymous reviewers for their very valuable comments as well as to his informants, who generously shared their experiences with him.

Notes

Thomas Molony is the accepting Guest Editor for this article.

All citations from authors or informants writing or speaking French have been translated by me into English. Any mistakes are my responsibility.

My analytical framework shows considerable similarities to de Bruijn's (2008) approach of “communication ecology” and also bears resemblance to Bensaâd's (2009c) analysis of migration routes as “interfaces.”

In terms of theory, this implies that we can draw on insights developed with reference to mobile and analogue phones. This methodology has also been suggested by Donner (2005, 2010).

MNT, like other migration theories, was originally not designed to explain the migration journey, but was developed to explain the perpetuation of migration streams and their directedness; phenomena neoclassical theory failed to explain. In MNT, migration networks are seen as (one of) the determining factors in the migration process and are defined as “sets of interpersonal ties that connect migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants in origin and destination areas through bonds of kinship, friendship, and shared community origin” (Massey et al., 2006, p. 448; see also: Boyd, 1989; de Haas, 2010; MacDonald & MacDonald, 1964; Wilson, 1994).

The “migration as business” model sees professional ties as the dominant form of social relations in the migration process. Migration is described as a business, in which actors (migrants, smugglers and the migrant's family) interact along the lines of profit maximization. Highly organized trafficking networks that practice division of labour are the key organizers of the process and live off the profits they make (Salt & Stein, 1997; cf. Bilger, Hoffmann, & Jandl, 2006; van Moppes & Schapendonk, 2007b; for a critique see Herman, 2006).

Interestingly, as can be seen by comparing the GSMA coverage map 2005 (the earliest available to me, www.coveragemaps.com/gsmposter_world.htm) with that from 2009 (www.coveragemaps.com/gsmposter_world.htm), these otherwise minor settlements were among the first places in both, Mali and Niger, to receive network coverage.

westernunion.co.uk, 26.04.2010; van Moppes and Schapendonk (2007a).

Due to restrictions of space, I will only relatively briefly discuss this process here. For a more in-depth treatment, see: Carling (2002), Collyer (2007), de Haas (2006, 2008), Hamood (2006), Marfaing and Nadi (2009) and Pian (2009). To an extent, this general trend was undermined by European states that retained special immigration regimes for nationals of their former colonies and periodical regularizations of clandestine immigrants (de Haas, 2008).

Again, the position of Maghrebian and Sahel countries is more ambiguous than what this general trend suggests. First, countries such as Mauritania and Algeria depend on the cheap labor supplied by sub-Saharan Africans (Bensaâd, 2009b; Choplin, 2008). Second, countries such as Morocco and Mauritania use the presence of sub-Saharan migrants on their territories as political assets, securing them means from, and closer association with the EU (Choplin 2008, p. 11; de Haas 2008, p. 1316). They have thus a certain interest to not clamp down completely on irregular migration.

While reading the literature on other clandestine migration movements towards the EU, no comparable actor came up (cf. Bilger et al., 2006; Yükseker & Brewer, 2006 (www.allacademic.com/meta/p105362_index.html); Içduygu & Toktas, 2002; Papadopoulou, 2004; Roman, 2006).

The separation along the lines of nationalities is not completely exclusive. For example, Pian (2009) reports that Gambians often live together with the Senegalese, and the Congolese from both DRC and Republic of Congo are led by the same chairman. However, the “default option” is the cited alignment according to nationality, and migrants usually cannot choose their community (P., personal communication, 3 April 2010; Pian 2005, 2009).

In order to protect my informants' identity, I am only citing their first names here.

Migrations via the western route traversing Nouakchott in Mauritania seem to rely less on hybrid networks. The findings presented here thus only partly apply to those cases.

Interview with Professor Ali Bensaâd (1 April 2010). Professor Bensaâd received a call himself. Migrants also called reporters from Radio France International in Paris.

It has been argued that using mobile phones frees the migrants from the need to carry with them large sums of money, reducing the risk of theft and robbery and thus making the migration journey easier (van Moppes & Schapendonk, 2007a). However, while this idea sounds compelling, I found that money transfer services (due to the difficulties described) were only used as a “last resort.” Normally, migrants would set out on their journeys carrying with them all the money they may need.

A very similar procedure has been described for the Maghnia-Oujda link by Pian (2009).

I lack concrete data on this point, but logic and anecdotal evidence suggests that smugglers are generally making ample use of mobile phones to coordinate with their clients as well as for the purpose of internal coordination (cf. Içduygu & Toktas, 2002).