NEGOMOBI: Negotiating Mobility in Mali and Burkina Faso

The Euro-African Migration, Development, Security Nexus in West Africa: Negotiating Mobility in Mali and Burkina Faso is a Marie Skłodowska Curie Project of Dr. Marie Deridder 2020-2023 hosted at the Forum for Africa Studies and funded by the EU (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, Grant Agreement N° 895859).

The link between development, migration and security is an important part of the EU foreign policy strategy in Africa, implemented through the channel of development aid. For a decade, Mali has been experiencing political instability and conflicts on its territory, while migration issues have always been a driving force for political mobilizations. In recent years, Burkina Faso has also been experiencing challenging events for peace and political stability. This migration-development-security nexus has become a major political problem, prompting discourses, policies and dispositifs of crisis impacting daily mobility in West Africa. 

Funded by a 3-years Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, the NEGOMOBI project investigates this nexus. It focuses on West Africa’s Malian and Burkinabe case studies. Firstly, it conducts a retrospective study of this Euro-African nexus as a public problem. This involves a historical review of migration and security policies promoted by Western countries in Burkina Faso and Mali in a postcolonial setting. Secondly, the project studies the actual policymaking process promoting this nexus and negotiations between the EU and Mali and Burkina Faso on cooperation agreements as an attempt to solve this migration-security crisis. The project also describes the implementation ‘from below’ of this nexus and studies the effects and counter-effects on West African mobility. By following the chains of actors, NEGOMOBI investigates how scales are concretely articulated in the making of a public policy and its implementation, and how this policy contributes to locally (re)produce social and political inequality through its performative effects.

Publications

• Deridder M., Eyebiyi E., Ménard, M., (dir.), (2022), « Praxis décoloniales et rapports de pouvoir dans la fabrique des savoirs en contextes postcoloniaux / Decolonial Praxis and Power Relations in Knowledge Production in Postcolonial Settings », Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques, 53-2. https://doi.org/10.4000/rsa.5551
• Deridder M., 2021, Elites, élections et transformations du politique au Mali. "Ceux qui cherchent le pouvoir sont parmi nous", Karthala, coll. Hommes et sociétés et APAD, Paris.
• Deridder M. & Pelckmans L. (dir.), 2020, « Perspectives ouest-africaines sur les politiques migratoires et sécuritaires européennes. West African engagements with the EU migration-development-security nexus », Anthropology and development, n°51. https://doi.org/10.4000/anthropodev.917
• Deridder M., Sylla A. (2024), « Racialized Impact of Migration Governance in Mali », Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 40(1), pp. 91-115. https://doi.org/10.4000/remi.25425 
• Deridder M., Menard A., Eyebiyi E., 2022, « Présentation. Hiérarchies des savoirs et rapports de pouvoir dans les milieux académiques en contextes postcoloniaux : pour des praxis décoloniales et féministes », Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques, 53(2), pp. 1-34. https://doi.org/10.4000/rsa.5576
• Deridder M., Menard A., Eyebiyi E., 2022, « Presentation. Hierarchies in knowledge production and power relations in academic postcolonial settings: investigating decolonial and feminist praxis », Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques, 53(2), pp. 35-66. https://doi.org/10.4000/rsa.5604
• Deridder M., Eyebiyi E., Newman A., 2021, « Le decolonial turn : quels échos, résonances et chantiers pour l’APAD ? », Anthropology and development, hors serie, pp. 332-346.
  https://doi.org/10.4000/anthropodev.1340
• Deridder M., Pelckmans L., Ward E., 2020, “Reversing the gaze: West Africa performing the EU migration-development-security nexus”, Anthropology & development, 51, pp. 9-32.
  https://doi.org/10.4000/anthropodev.938
• Deridder M., Servais O., 2023, “The “Muslim Mali” Game: Revisiting the Malian religious-security-postcolonial nexus in popular culture” In Bernal V., Pype K. & Taylor D. (dir.), Cryptopolitics: Exposure, Concealment, and Digital Media, Berghahn Books, pp. 97-128. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781805390299
• Deridder M., Sylla A., (2023), « Violences raciales et gouvernance migratoire au Mali », Plein droit, vol. 139, no. 4, pp. 31-34.  https://doi.org/10.3917/pld.139.0035
• Deridder M., Eyebiyi E., (2022), « Les partenariats scientifiques à l’épreuve de la question décoloniale : une expérience France-Mali. Entretien avec Anne Doquet », Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques, 53-2. https://doi.org/10.4000/rsa.5835

International Meetings

• International Conference ‘Questioning the Construction of African Migration Policies’, IMERA, Marseille, September 16-17, 2021. Paper: Politique migratoire et racialisation au Mali : le cas des migrants de retour de Libye, with A. Sylla, Maître Assistant, Université des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako, Mali.
• Conference of the Mande Studies Association (MANSA), Forum for Africa Studies, Uppsala University on Zoom, June 16-19, 2021 (Postponed in 2021 due to Covid-19). Paper: Militer contre la politique migratoire européenne par temps de « crise » au Mali : entre extraversion, émancipation postcoloniale et urgence humanitaire, Panel: Subjectivités politiques et pluralité d’agirs politiques en contexte postcolonial et d’extraversion, with Dr. Anaïs Menard (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology/LAAP/UCLouvain) and Dr. Romaine Konseiga (LAAP/UCLouvain).
• 8th Ethnography & Qualitative Research Conference, University of Trento on Zoom, June 9-12, 2021. Paper: Staged identities in male-dominated field sites: examples from Mali and Sierra Leone, with A. Ménard (UCLouvain/Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Panel ‘Gendering Ethnography - How Does Gender Affect the Fieldwork (and the Other Way Around)?’ Convenors: Cristina Oddone (University of Strasbourg) & Costanza Currò (University of Helsinki).

Organisation of events

• Member of the Organising Committee of the APAD International Conference ‘Circulations in the global South: Ethnographic explorations of globalized exchanges’, Lomé, Togo, 29 November - 3 December, 2021.
• Panel co-convenor and discussant: Reinventing circulations at times of ‘crisis’ in West Africa, with Dr. A. Menard (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) at the APAD International Conference ‘Circulations in the global South: Ethnographic explorations of globalized exchanges’, Lomé, Togo, 29 November - 3 December, 2021.
• Member of the Organising Committee Conference of the Mande Studies Association (MANSA), Forum for Africa Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden, June 16-19, 2021.
• Panel co-convenor and discussant: Subjectivités politiques et pluralité d’agirs politiques en contexte postcolonial et d’extraversion, with Dr. A. Menard (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) at the Conference of the Mande Studies Association (MANSA), Forum for Africa Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden, June 16-19, 2021