Violence in African Elections: Between Democracy and Big Man Politics

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Diaspora at Home? Wartime Mobilities in the Burkina Faso-Côte d'Ivoire Transnational Space

In the period 1999-2007, more than half a million Burkinabe returned to Burkina Faso due to the persecution of immigrant labourers in neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. Ultranationalist debates about the criteria for Ivorian citizenship had intensified during the 1990s and led to the scapegoating of immigrants in a political rhetoric centred on notions of autochthony and xenophobia. Having been actively encouraged to immigrate by the Ivorian state for generations, Burkinabe migrant labou-rers were n..

Citizenship matters : explorations into the citizen-state relationship in Africa

Citizenship is a universal legal concept and norm. But its meaning and impact differ. Its codification and implementation are shaped by historical trajec- tories, political systems and state/government relations with members of society. State policy affects perceptions of citizenship and civic behaviour by those gov- erned. This paper engages with current challenges relating to citizenship in Africa South of the Sahara. It centres on academic and policy discussions on citi- zenship but also draws on media reports and secondary literature to explore whether promoting and embracing a positive notion of citizenship can be an oppor- tunity for states and governments as well as citizens. Could civic education be con- sidered a worthwhile investment in social stability and a shared identification with the common good? We conclude by making a case for a social contract, which reconciles particularistic identities (such as ethnicity) with citizenship and govern- ance under the rule of law as an investment into enhanced trust in a citizen-state relationship.https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/sfds20hj2023Political Science

Back in Youth: Social Unbecoming in the Study of West African Masculinities

African youth became a central research theme in anthropology and related disciplines in the early 2000s, drawing renewed attention to the lives and aspirations of a segment of the continent's population that, since the independence era, has become increasingly demographically dominant but socially and politically marginalised. Reflecting on an extended case study of male ex-combatants in urban Burkina Faso, this paper offers a critical reading of the anthropological scholarship on African youth, emphasising, first, that much of this literature is most usefully read as studies of diverse (West) African masculinities and, second, that the literature has underplayed the extent to which achievements of social progression tend to be acutely reversible in contexts of precarity or radical social change, throwing the unfortunate, as it were, back in youth

Diaspora at Home? : Wartime Mobilities in the Burkina Faso-Côte d'Ivoire Transnational Space

In the period 1999-2007, more than half a million Burkinabe returned to Burkina Faso due to the persecution of immigrant labourers in neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. Ultranationalist debates about the criteria for Ivorian citizenship had intensified during the 1990s and led to the scapegoating of immigrants in a political rhetoric centred on notions of autochthony and xenophobia. Having been actively encouraged to immigrate by the Ivorian state for generations, Burkinabe migrant labourers were now forced to leave their homes and livelihoods behind and return to a country they had left in their youth or, as second-generation immigrants in Côte d’Ivoire, had never seen. Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire, the thesis explores the narratives and everyday practices of returning labour migrants in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second-largest city, in order to understand the subjective experiences of displacement that the forced return to Burkina Faso engendered. The analysis questions the appropriateness of the very notion of “return” in this context and suggests that people’s senses of home are multiplex and tend to rely more on the ability to pursue active processes of emplacement in everyday life than on abstract notions of belonging, e.g. relating to citizenship or ethnicity. The study analyses intergenerational interactions within and across migrant families in the city and on transformations of intra-familial relations in the context of forced displace-ment. A particular emphasis is placed on the experiences of young adults who were born and raised in Côte d’Ivoire and arrived in Burkina Faso for the first time during the Ivorian crisis. These young men and women were received with scepticism in Burkina Faso because of their perceived “Ivorian” upbringing, language, and behaviour and were forced to face new forms of stigmatisation and exclusion. At the same time, young migrants were able to exploit their labelling as outsiders and turn their difference into an advantage in the competition for scarce employment opportunities and social connections

Waves of Disaster – Waves of Relief : An Ethnography of Humanitarian Assistance to Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka

Abstract This paper applies an impressionistic and reflexive genre of ethnography to understand the ethnographer’s meeting with the humanitarian aid workers in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. It offers an analysis of the political atmosphere in the country prior to the tsunami as a central framework for understanding current tensions and debates over the distribution of tsunami aid resources, and traces the emergence of what has been termed Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism. Based on three months of ethnographic fieldwork from April to July 2005 among aid workers at the central level in Colombo and a careful attention to the rhetorics and arguments that characterized the writings in the Sri Lankan press during this period, the paper argues that while public debates over tsunami aid distribution has been entwined with political rivalries between the Sri Lankan government, and Sinhala and Tamil nationalist groups, the everyday reality of international humanitarians evolved around the forming of a common development language to categorise the demands of the aid intervention and on the performances of individual organisations, personified by a limited number of individuals in the professional fora of the humanitarians in Colombo

Rethinking the Mediterranean crisis : advice for policy makers facing a humanitarian catastrophe

Create legal entry points into the EU and start recruiting labour through EU embassies in Africa. But don’t forget to take into account the individual aspirations and capabilities of the migrants. Here are some recommendations for policy makers seeking a solution to the Mediterranean crisis. The significant proportion of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa must be taken into account when seeking solution to the Mediterranean crisis Interventions should prioritise long-term solutions that take the aspirations and capabilities of migrants and refugees into account Creation of legal entry points into the EU should be a central priority, in order to remove the incentive for future migrants to risk their lives at sea Active recruitment of labour through EU embassies in Africa would further reduce the incentive to pursue illegal means of entering Europe

Aligning European migration policies with African priorities : policy advice on African migration for Nordic decision makers

Bridging European and African perspectives on migration governance will result in more sustainable migration policies. Under Sweden's EU presidency, Nordic decision makers have an opportunity to lead the way. They should adopt a holistic and long-term approach, informed by a research-based understanding of the dynamics of African migration that takes the aspirations of African migrants and the perspectives of policymakers more seriously