English summary

Over the past decade, the Sahelian region of West Africa has faced multiple and overlapping crises that jeopardize long-term history of mobility and labour migration. By looking beyond prevailing narratives approaching displacement exclusively as a factor of vulnerability and victimization, this panel invites contributions that examine empirically how long-standing labour mobility dynamics in West Africa both endure and are refashioned by the escalation of multiple crises. How do people on the move for labour issues navigate uncertainty and develop strategies to cope with radical socio-political change?

English argumentary

Over the past decade, the Sahelian region of West Africa has faced a rapidly deteriorating security situation accompanied by democratic backsliding and military take-overs in the wake of mounting jihadist and armed insurgencies, displacing more than 5 million people in the Sahel. As a result, the subregion’s populations are facing multiple and overlapping crises. This panel explores the human consequences of the escalation of insecurity and violence in West Africa, with particular attention to the diverse roles of human mobility as both a source of vulnerability and a mitigating strategy in times of crisis.

Mobility in times of crisis is often understood in binary terms of forced versus voluntary migration, which entails that other effects and dynamics of mobility are overlooked. This panel invites contributions that examine empirically how long-standing labour mobility dynamics in West Africa both endure and are refashioned by the escalation of multiple crises. By looking beyond prevailing narratives approaching displacement exclusively as a factor of vulnerability and victimization, the aim is to explore how people on the move navigate uncertainty and develop strategies to cope with radical socio-political change. Here are some of the questions that could be addressed. How people on the move plan, actualize and practice internal and transnational labour mobilities in times of crisis? What are their labour mobility-related hopes, aspirations, constraints and disillusions? What king of (geo)political narrative do they mobilize to decrypt their contexts of labour mobility? What are the inequalities and power relations embedded in labour migration through an intersectional lens?