Introduction
1After 800 migrants, including many Senegalese, were lost while attempting to cross from Libya to Italy on 19 April 2015, the Minister of Senegalese Abroad set up a crisis unit to identify the missing. No such initiative had followed a previous incident in 2006, when a large number of Senegalese perished while trying to reach Spain in small open fishing boats (pirogues) launched from the Senegalese and Mauritanian coasts (Carling 2007; Pian 2011; Samb 2007).2 The victims in 2006 included many young men3 from the commune of Thiaroye-sur-Mer, among them Alioune Mar, son of Yayi Bayam Diouf. Diouf, a well-known woman of social status,4 was at that time chair of the local development association, the Collectif pour le Développement Intégré de Thiaroye-sur-Mer (CDIT), the Association for the Integrated Development of Thiaroye. A week after news of the sinking, Diouf organised a memorial service for her son, whose body has never been recovered. On 15 April 2006, she convened a general meeting of CDIT to discuss ‘the pirogue phenomenon’. At the meeting, a new group was formed, the Collectif des Femmes pour la Lutte contre l’Émigration Clandestine (COFLEC, Women for the Fight against Clandestine Emigration), and Yayi Bayam Diouf was appointed president (Bouilly 2008a). On 25 April, COFLEC held an inaugural meeting to highlight ‘the risks of clandestine emigration’; 357 people attended and paid a contribution, fewer than ten of these men. This was followed by a period of recruitment and development via a range of activities: raising awareness of the risks of irregular emigration, identifying the missing migrants and their families, and providing material and moral assistance to their mothers (support groups, tontines [informal credit unions], and micro-entrepreneurship). ‘The fight against clandestine emigration’ comprised two main strands: preventing further tragedies by deterring young Thiaroye inhabitants from boat migration, and assisting the families of the missing. This cause might be expected to have united the inhabitants of Thiaroye-sur-Mer; in fact, it mobilised them unequally – particularly migrants’ parents and relatives. Half of COFLEC’s members are the mothers of surviving or missing migrants, while a further third are other female relatives – essentially aunts and sisters. Fathers and wives, however, are conspicuous by their absence (see Figure 1). COFLEC’s membership profile serves to refute circumstantial and emotional theories of collective action which attribute causal status to dramatic events, arguing that the ‘moral shock’ or upheaval in daily life inflicted by disasters and accidents leads those affected to react and organise collectively (Jasper 1997; Snow, et al. 1998). How can we account for this unequal mobilisation of migrants’ parents and relatives? More precisely, why have issues not a priori specifically feminine – like the loss of these young men and ‘the fight against clandestine emigration’ – mobilised more women than men, and more mothers than wives? How can we explain COFLEC’s gendered and generational dimensions?
To answer these questions, this article will investigate the (non-)engagement trajectories of migrants’ parents and wives in ‘the fight against clandestine emigration’ and in COFLEC. It will focus in particular on the motives they invoke, i.e. both the socio-economic drivers of their (non-)engagement and their perception of them. In view of the overrepresentation of women among COFLEC members, an initial line of enquiry will examine the degree to which gender relationships structure the ‘fight against clandestine emigration’. I will analyse their role in shaping both the initial mobilisation against boat migration and the organisation which embodies that struggle, seeking on the one hand to define the gendered drivers and motives underlying the (non-)engagement of parents and wives and on the other hand, to investigate the impact of female overrepresentation on COFLEC’s practices, discourse and organisational form. Since the 1990s, numerous studies have revealed how social protest is far from neutral in terms of gender relationships, thus revising existing social movement theories (Einwohner, Hollander, and Olson 2000; Fillieule and Roux 2009). These studies have shown, for example, how the centrality of women and the absence of men in certain activist causes, organisations and tasks are dictated by gendered stereotypes, norms or attributions. The literature on women and community organising has shown how women can be incited to engage in ‘maternal’ or non-gender related causes by two drivers: the sexual division of labour, and motherhood as social identity and function. According to Kevin Neuhouser, ‘traditional gender roles and family obligations may actually spur women to participate in movements that are not consciously about gender’ (Neuhouser 1995, 95) – a view illustrated by the involvement of women in food riots or bread-and-butter issue movements (Zghal 1995), environmental defence (Ikelegbe 2005; Brown and Ferguson 1995; Rodriguez 1994), or support of their striking male relatives (Benya 2015; Cooper 1996). Building on this work, I will examine how gender norms and the division of reproductive and productive labour within local families and wider Senegalese society have determined motives for the (non-)engagement of migrants’ parents and wives and, where applicable, the practical modalities of their passage to collective action. While gender relationships form the initial focus of this study, the generational dimension of COFLEC also leads to a broader evaluation of all power relationships determining (non-) engagement against boat emigration and shaping this mobilisation. I will therefore be alert to the hierarchies and intersecting social relationships specific to this case, fully aware of – but not entering here into – the theoretical debates over the definitions, the various usages and the limits of the well-established concept of intersectionality (Collins and Chepp 2013; see also editorial of this issue by Bouilly, Rillon, and Cross).
This study must first be grounded in the profile of the actors concerned: the parents and wives left behind in Thiaroye-sur-Mer. The motives for their (non-)engagement against boat emigration and in COFLEC can only be viewed as a function of their roles and positions in their relative’s migration process and of their perception of the departure and its failure. A second line of enquiry then opens up: what does the Thiaroye mobilisation owe to the status and experiences of non-migrants? Does the engagement of migrants’ parents and wives depend on their links to the migration – whether upstream (at the time of deciding to leave and arranging the passage) or downstream (coping with the impact of a sinking)? We will draw here on the findings of works on the non-migrant or left behind (Toyota, Yeoh, and Nguyen 2007; Jónsson 2011), a category long ignored in migration studies and rehabilitated by gender (Mahler and Pessar 2006) and transnational (Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton 1992) approaches. The gender approach has placed non-migrants at the heart of the process by highlighting the crucial role of kinship and family strategy in the decision to migrate (Boyd 1989; Chant 1998). It placed particular emphasis on gender and generational hierarchies within families, thereby deconstructing the monolithic, non-conflictual and altruistic view of households previously advocated by the ‘new economics of labour migration’ (Stark and Bloom 1985). It also examined the effects of migration on women, migrants as well as non-migrants, and on gender relationships. This perspective has given fresh impetus to studies of the ‘left-behind’ previously dominated by an economic and developmental prism – for example, in works on monetary transfers – or by a concept of the left-behind that is too often passive, homogeneous and non-conflictual. Research on the economic and social repercussions of male emigration on non-migrant women presents a picture that varies by period and socio-economic context. The earliest studies identify an emancipating and empowering effect on wives left behind and a social transformation dynamic in gender relations (Chant 1997; Brink 1991). More recent works, however, reach a different conclusion. They highlight instead the resilience of gender relations, observable particularly after the return of the emigrant (Ba 1996; de Haas and van Rooij 2010; Ennaji and Sadiqi 2008; Mondain, et al. 2012). Building upon these studies, we will examine the reciprocal relationships between the (non-)engagement trajectories of migrants’ parents and wives and their ‘immobile’ experience of emigration: upstream, by examining their involvement or otherwise in the decision to migrate and arrangement of the passage; downstream, in their experience and perception – individual and collective – of the consequences of a failed emigration.
In summary, I will analyse not only the impact of gender relationships, themselves enmeshed in other power relationships, on the mobilisation of the parents and wives of Thiaroye migrants, but also the impact of their ‘immobile’ experience of migration, assessing the reciprocal effects of these two dynamics. I will show that the overrepresentation of mothers in COFLEC is the product of dominant stereotypes and gender norms. These mothers, and more broadly women of that generation, have mobilised more actively than their husbands and daughters-in-law because of the particular social, economic and symbolic obligations, and specific needs and interests, that derive from their identity and status as mothers. The unequal engagement of parents and wives within COFLEC derives from their unequal position in the division of labour and the migration process – the two being linked – and from their heterogeneous experiences of the social and economic impact of a sinking. I will also demonstrate that the overrepresentation of mothers is the product of the gendered structure of the available recruitment networks and repertoire of action, which in turn influence COFLEC’s activities and discourse such as to discourage fathers and wives from joining. Furthermore, these husbands and daughters-in-law share neither the relationship to migration, nor the social position, nor the interests and objectives of the mothers engaged in the association.
Methodology and fieldwork
The results presented here are based on field research conducted over a total of 16 months between January 2007 and February 2012 in Thiaroye-sur-Mer. Now completely absorbed within the conurbation of Pikine (a town adjoining Dakar), the historic core (bourg) of this former Lebu5 village has retained a residential morphology divided into concessions owned by families descended from its founders. In 2006 the commune had a population of 41,754. The only study available on the period predating this research shows that, in contrast to other parts of Senegal (Tall 2008), emigration developed late in Thiaroye-sur-Mer, which was previously more accustomed to an influx of rural and international settlers seeking work in Dakar. The international emigration that first developed during the 1980s is overwhelmingly male in character and expresses a family response to the local economic crisis and the social demotion of the Lebu (Fall 2001).
The data used in this article were gathered via semi-structured interviews held in Wolof or in French, or during repeated periods of observation conducted at COFLEC headquarters or among particular families willing to take me into their confidence. The initial interviews targeted COFLEC members6 and consisted of closed questions designed to gather socio-biographical data regarding the subject and, where applicable, any undocumented migrant within the family (age, education/training, occupation, income, marital status, type of marriage – e.g., polygamous or not, number of children, position in the family, involvement in, and knowledge of, the migration project, financing the passage, fate of the migrant). Once coded, this information provided quantitative data profiling the migrants and the COFLEC membership. The interviews then progressed to a series of open questions of the life-story type, inviting the subjects to talk not only about their migration experience (motives and modalities of departure, place, date, cost of the passage, source of finance, perception of the costs, risk and benefits of migration, socio-economic and biographical impact of the emigration and, where applicable, its failure), but also their engagement in COFLEC (motives and modalities of engagement; functioning of, and roles within, the association; activities undertaken; obstacles and results; perception of the ‘fight against clandestine emigration’; socio-economic and biographical consequences of engagement; previous or simultaneous associative or political activism). In some cases, responses were collected over a series of interviews, and for the core group of 15 subjects who became best known to me, at different periods of the project in order to gain a longitudinal view of migrant and activist careers.
I then sought to broaden the profile of the research subjects by conducting the same type of interview with migrants who had attempted the crossing, and with migrants’ parents and family members who had not joined COFLEC – including several who proved to be former members who had resigned,7 or members in name only. I met these individuals by going door-to-door in the commune or via contacts provided by the other respondents. Wherever possible I conducted intersecting interviews involving a migrant and another member of his family, or with the two relatives (wife/parents/family) of a missing migrant (14 cases in total).
By this method I was able to interview a total of 24 migrants, 48 mothers of migrants, 12 fathers, 11 wives and 33 relatives, and 10 members of COFLEC without other links to the migrants. These interviews allowed me to draw up a portrait of 110 migrants from Thiaroye (see Figure 3).
‘It matters more to mothers’: intersecting views of migrants’ parents on their unequal investment in the emigration and the fight against it
While the advanced age of the fathers might be one reason for their reluctance to join COFLEC (see Figure 1), other drivers and motives also explain the difference in engagement between the mothers and fathers of migrants. We will see that their unequal engagement derives as much from their different social positions in the socio-familial organisation and the migration project of their child – the two being linked – as from the socially legitimate representations and justifications offered by them for their respective roles and experiences. All these parents, COFLEC member or non-member, justify the greater mobilisation of mothers ‘against clandestine emigration’ in terms of their emotional and economic ties to their children. In a differentialist and essentialist register, the mothers’ mobilisation is attributed initially to their ‘feminine’ and ‘maternal’ qualities. The parents then go on to explain their unequal engagement in terms of their different family and domestic obligations. The mothers are deemed ‘more concerned’ in the emigration of their sons because of their responsibility for the success of the children and their involvement in the departure – the two being linked. Finally, the mothers are judged more ‘affected’ in economic terms. With the loss of their sons, the mothers have also lost a financial support, adding to their family duties and responsibilities in a context of acute local economic crisis. This is why they engaged in greater numbers in the fight against more – potentially disastrous – departures, and why they formed and/or joined an organisation that corresponded to their needs.
The essentialist and differentialist register as a motive for (non-)engagement
The parents of migrants initially justify the greater mobilisation of mothers in terms of certain ‘feminine qualities’ like sensitivity, sentimentality, nurturing or care. According to Kène, the mother of twins who attempted the crossing: ‘It’s the mother who carries her children close to her heart, while men have several wives, a lot of children. They aren’t affected’ (Interview, COFLEC member, Thiaroye, 21 April 2009). Awa continues: ‘Men usually don’t have the time. And where feelings are concerned, mothers are closer to their children, fathers forget very quickly’ (Interview, mother of a missing migrant, COFLEC member, Thiaroye, 9 April 2008). Fathers also deploy the same essentialist and differentialist register to justify their lack of engagement. Gora, father of a missing migrant, states baldly: ‘there are more women because they feel things more deeply’ (Interview, non-member of COFLEC, Thiaroye, 10 April 2009). Meanwhile Djibril, who says that he is ‘deeply affected’ by the loss of his son, is quick to add that his wife suffers ‘even more’: ‘Women are more vulnerable because these are their children. Women have more time too. They’re more affected by what happened. Since Alé’s death, his mother is ill all the time’ (Interview, non-member of COFLEC, Thiaroye, 10 April 2009). The expression or bottling-up of emotions – whether or not these emotions triggered mobilisation – is based in socially gendered attitudes which every interviewee (male or female) attempts to uphold. The ‘feminine’ qualities highlighted by parents to justify their unequal mobilisation probably represent less an individual’s true feelings and underlying motivation in fighting boat migration than an interiorisation of gendered norms prescribing certain types of male and female behaviour. The emotional woman is contrasted with the impassive male. But what are described as ‘feminine qualities’ are primarily ‘maternal qualities’. As we shall see, what is in play here is motherhood as social function.
The double maternal responsibility for a child’s emigration
The migrants’ parents then explain that they failed to mobilise similarly against boat migration due to their different functions and responsibilities within the family and to their different roles in their children’s migration – the two being linked.
Mothers consider themselves, and are deemed to be, ‘more affected’ by fighting against ‘clandestine emigration’ because the departure of their sons relates to two levels of maternal responsibility: the protection and success of the children and involvement in the migration process. Birahim explains: ‘We men are old. That’s why women get involved more than we do. And they normally look after the house. They have to try and keep their sons close so the sons can help out’ (Interview, father of a missing migrant, non-member of COFLEC, Thiaroye, 1 March 2007). Ngary adds: ‘It’s usually the mothers who encourage and pay for the crossing, so they are most affected. Since the mothers are behind it, it’s natural there should be more of them’ (Interview, uncle of a missing migrant, non-member of COFLEC, Thiaroye, 22 February 2009). Kène confirms the importance of motherhood as a driver: ‘Women are involved more because they look after the children’ (Interview, COFLEC member, Thiaroye, 21 April 2009). These motives for (non-)engagement are related to the social functions assigned to the mothers and fathers, and to their respective roles in the emigration of their sons, a subject to which we will return.
The families of Thiaroye are founded on a gendered and generational division of labour (Abdoul 2001; Fall 1986). The authority and status of head of household devolves upon the men, and to the oldest man and house-owner when several households share the same concession. The men are responsible for meeting the primary needs of the family, and sons are expected to take over from their fathers – a duty inculcated from a very young age. Meanwhile the women look after education, basic safety, health care and household tasks. In Senegal, women’s maternal role in social reproduction is highly prized. Mothers are judged in the light of the socio-economic and moral achievements of their children. A child’s success is therefore attributed to what the Senegalese call a ‘mother’s work’ (liggéyu ndèye) (Lecarme 1999; Dial 2008, 80–82). Thus, it is said of a successful individual, ‘Your mother did good work there’ (ndèyam liggéey na). Mothers make an even greater investment in the success of their sons, in so far as the latter normally continue to live on the family concession, while a daughter, once married, moves in with her husband.
Mothers are also heavily reliant on the success of their sons due to the increasing financial difficulties of their husbands. With a local economic crisis characterised by declining profitability in the small-scale fishery and agricultural and market-gardening activities that had been the main sources of income for Thiaroye families (Fall 1986), heads of family are now struggling to fulfil their role as breadwinner. Overwhelmingly polygamous, the migrants’ fathers head large families. Mostly retired or unemployed, their average monthly income of 200 euros hardly covers expenses estimated at two euros per person per day (see Figure 2). The sons have to deputise for them, but they find it hard to assume their responsibilities and achieve the status of an independent adult. Almost all the Thiaroye migrants were in employment before their departure. Yet they considered their situation unsatisfactory largely because their low and/or irregular income (see Figure 3) did not allow them to escape the nest, properly fulfil their social and family obligations, and realise their own ambitions – to marry, have children, buy a house or a car etc. (Bouilly 2008a; Pian 2011).
In this context, women are increasingly required to cover the family expenses (Adjamagbo, Philippe, and Dial 2002). The income (earnings from employment and private means) previously devoted by women to their personal expenses (consumption, family ceremonies, solidarity networks, additional investment in the education of their children) is increasingly diverted to ordinary outgoings. In some cases, women even stand in for their husband and sons. In 2001, 27% of Thiaroye households were headed by women (Abdoul 2001, 172). Mothers have encouraged their sons to emigrate in search of a better future for reasons linked to their reproductive role and their additional economic responsibilities in a context of dispossession (Cross 2013). As COFLEC’s president says:
We encouraged them beforehand so they would have a better life. You know we’re a community of fishermen: polygamous families mostly, because you need on average 35 men for a pirogue. That’s why the men are polygamous, sons are needed to fish. Traditionally, the men go to sea and the women are fishwives [ … ] That’s when fishing was still profitable. Today it makes nothing. It’s the crisis …. We can’t afford the fishing licences, and Korean and European boats have moved in. We can’t compete. Fish stocks are declining. That’s how our village was impoverished. The children have grown up and the sea has got poorer. What’s left? Take to the pirogues. Not to fish but to head for Europe. (Interview, Thiaroye, 22 January 2007)
I’d sent my son to Morocco. He spent 16 months there. But it was hard, he didn’t earn much, he never made it to Spain. So I asked him to return. He came back in 2004. Then he got married. After the wedding I gave him money to set up as a fishmonger but he didn’t make any money. I was the one who heard that people were leaving by pirogue. I discussed it with my son but he didn’t like the idea. He didn’t want to go that way, in those conditions. I encouraged him, I even pressurised him. I almost stopped speaking to him. ‘You’re a married man,’ I told him. ‘You have to step up. I can’t help you any more!’ I only have a small business and with my health as it is …. (Interview, COFLEC member, Thiaroye, 9 April 2009)
The father’s role is harder to grasp. Like their wives, they ascribe the departure of their children to the economic crisis and the lack of a future in Senegal. While a similar proportion were told what their son was planning, they made a smaller financial contribution (see Table 1). The fathers claim a lesser role than the mothers in the decision to emigrate. They keep a certain distance, preferring to emphasise the family aspect of the migration project, speaking of an ‘agreed’ decision, of ‘discussion’ with their son and his mother. Some fathers and uncles disclaimed all responsibility and blamed the mothers, accusing them of ignorance or greed:
Fathers know more about the pitfalls of emigration. In general, they’re more aware than their wives of its consequences. That’s why they don’t normally encourage it. Children are closer to their mother because she breastfed them. [ … ] The mother prays during the voyage and visits the marabout. She has to tell her husband whether the child has died or reached his destination. With his mother’s complicity, the child can convince you he’s gone to a relative in Thiès [a local town]. [ … ] Everything happens behind the father’s back. You don’t act as a couple, there’s no respect. [ … ] If the child makes a go of it, he builds himself a villa and brings his mother with him. He leaves his father on the family concession. It’s that bond again, you see. (Interview, COFLEC’s bookkeeper, Thiaroye, 8 May 2008)
COFLEC: a response to the gendered consequences of failed male emigration
Whether or not they encouraged and/or financed the departure of their sons, mothers have borne the full brunt of the social and economic impact of the death or absence of their child. In addition to the trauma, these women have lost what they term ‘a pillar of the family’ (‘soutien de famille’). The loss of so many young people of working age has caused considerable disruption to, and remodelling of, the domestic economy of the families concerned. The domestic duties and responsibilities of mothers of migrants have increased in a context of acute economic crisis. Fatou confirms: ‘Since this happened, we have no one to rely on for financial support. Usually the men go fishing and our sons get a job. Now women whose children don’t make it to Spain have lost everything’ (Interview, mother of a deceased migrant, COFLEC member, Thiaroye, 5 February 2007). Some mothers were left with sole responsibility for managing household finances, and in certain cases for taking care of their daughter(s)-in-law and grandchildren. Those who had used their savings to finance the crossing were in even worse straits. The president of COFLEC sums it up as follows: ‘the women have lost everything. Either they were ruined because they paid for the crossing and the children are now dead or missing, or their sons have been repatriated [deported] and are unemployed. In both cases the women lose out’ (Interview, Thiaroye, 22 May 2008). The male interviewees confirmed this view. Bara, whose son and nephew are among the missing, acknowledges: ‘The women are more tired out because some have lost their husband and sons who supported them’ (Interview, non-member of COFLEC, Thiaroye, 11 April 2009). Birahim, cited above, stresses that mothers had more interest in keeping their sons close by, as the latter helped out with day-to-day expenditure.
The economic and social effects of failed male emigration have appeared, and been experienced, more or less acutely according to the social position and cultural and material resources of individual mothers. The economic impact is difficult to substantiate or quantify given the absence of data on the conjugal/family economy of these women before the upsurge in migration in 2006, and sometimes after, when interviewees declined to give details of their income or survival strategies. Nonetheless, failed male emigration did have a significant impact experienced differently according to gender. Mothers believe that they are the primary victims of the failed migration project due to their domestic obligations ante and post migration. This is why many would no longer recommend migration by pirogue. Macodé confirms:
We realised that we had to find an alternative because too many children were being lost [ … ]. We have to stop helping the young to emigrate, we have to keep them here instead. We realised it was no good, that they die and we suffer and struggle in our daily lives. So we say we have to fight emigration, or that people must emigrate legally. (Interview, migrant’s aunt, COFLEC member, Thiaroye, 5 February 2007)
Some mothers went on to form or join COFLEC to fight this battle, and also to meet their specific problems and needs. The mothers of migrants came together on the basis of their shared experience. They first met at the home of Yayi Bayam Diouf after the funeral of her son, when they came to offer their condolences or seek information regarding their missing children. Here they found a space to share their grief and everyday hardships, supported by other women who had not lost a child. On the initiative of Diouf, who had previous experience of associative leadership, the informal interactions that developed after the funeral were soon combined and structured by creating COFLEC. Different types of mutual assistance – psychological (discussion groups) and material (tontine, cooperative with craft workshops, micro-credit schemes) were established to tackle the impact of male emigration. These activities encouraged more mothers of migrants and other women within the commune to join.
It is important to note that the mothers mobilised not only to meet their specific interests and needs but also in accordance with their resources and expertise. The birth of COFLEC owes a great deal to a pre-existing female ‘habitus’ of collective organisation (Fall 1991) and to resources mobilised and transformed to tackle the impact of the sinkings: dense neighbourhood and kinship bonds within the inner core (bourg) of the commune; female networks of solidarity and spaces of sociability – age-group associations (maas in Wolof), community groups, tontines; a pre-existing associative structure, and an available ‘issue entrepreneur’ (McCarthy and Zald 1977). COFLEC’s membership profile is in part explained by the modalities of its formation. The migrants’ mothers who did not join were too far removed from the core group of founders and peripheral to recruitment networks (see Figure 1 and Figure 2). Meanwhile other mothers of non-migrant sons joined COFLEC out of solidarity and/or as a matter of ‘routine’ activism. The aunts, sisters and cousins of migrants committed themselves against boat emigration because they identified with the experience of their sisters, aware that their sons might meet a similar fate. They also wanted to display their solidarity and support bereaved mothers who were often friends and acquaintances familiar through CDIT. Half of the members simply continued their associative engagement, moving from CDIT to COFLEC (Figure 1). The modalities of COFLEC’s creation and recruitment thus confirm the central role played by community and kinship networks in structuring female mobilisations (Cable 1992; Robnett 1996; Kuumba 2001).
We should also note the gendered nature of COFLEC’s organisational form and activities. The activities offered are those culturally and economically accessible to women. In Senegal, female orientation towards, and specialisation in, certain sectors and activities (care, craftwork, micro-credit, informal economy, associative sector rather than political sphere) are the product of a long history of promoting female productive and reproductive labour in the service of national development. This strategy was implemented both by the post-colonial state – President Senghor’s socialist Animation féminine policy8 and President Diouf’s Groupements de Promotion Féminine (GPF, or women’s advancement groups) (Cissé Wone 2002) – and by the women’s/gender and development programmes of international donors that have flourished since the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s (Bouilly 2016).
In summary, the engagement of migrants’ mothers in the ‘fight against clandestine emigration’ and the subsequent foundation of COFLEC stem from their practical gender needs, ‘those needs which are formulated from the concrete conditions women experience, in their engendered position within the sexual division of labor, and deriving out of this their practical gender interests for human survival’ (Moser 1989, 1803). Mothers supported the departure of their sons, then mobilised against it, because in both cases male emigration is related to their maternal function and domestic obligations. The drownings mark the failure of the mothers’ investment in their children’s success, while also destabilising their psychological condition and economic situation, in return making it harder for them to ‘properly’ perform their reproductive function. If the mothers of migrants, and more generally women of that generation, have struggled ‘against clandestine emigration’, it is partly because the emigration and its failure have a direct impact on their domestic and family responsibilities, and hence on their interests and needs. They have thus sought and found in COFLEC a space of mutual assistance that corresponds to those needs.
An association of mothers for mothers: the (self-)exclusion of migrants’ fathers and wives
COFLEC’s identity and actions have been determined in part by its membership profile, leading in turn to the (self-)exclusion of migrants’ fathers and wives. We will see that the association’s leadership, its ‘female-branded’ activities and its critical discourse regarding polygamy and the failings of husbands have deterred the fathers of migrants, and men in general, from joining. Thus COFLEC has gradually developed into a single-sex organisation. We will also see that the young wives of migrants have also not engaged in the association because they share neither the social position nor interests of their elders. COFLEC is riven by twin divides: of gender and of age.
Fathers shun an organisation branded as feminine
Men perceive COFLEC as an association of women for women. Its origins in CDIT, a pre-existing organisation almost exclusively composed of women of the same age-group (maas), has discouraged men from joining. Another deterrent was the fact that it was run by a woman. Some male interviewees did not hide their aversion to placing themselves under female authority. The mutual moral and economic support activities offered by the association also contributed to their lack of engagement. We have already noted how the social control operating upon men deterred migrants’ fathers from public expressions of sorrow. The fathers therefore did not participate in ‘discussion groups’, particularly after their transformation into highly mediatised public displays (Bouilly 2008b). The men strongly criticised the portrayal of women as victims, tearfully recounting their experiences for Western media. They felt this attitude contravened the Senegalese moral values of sutura (discretion) and kersa (modesty, respect). Adama, father of a missing migrant, explains that this was why he refused to join COFLEC:
Yayi came to see me but I wasn’t interested. ‘He’s gone,’ I said. ‘Let it be.’ I don’t like her methods. Toubabs [whites] like you come visiting. She shows them women who have lost their kids, they cry. [ … ] The men can’t stand it. (Interview, Thiaroye, 18 May 2008).
Finally, it is COFLEC’s discourse and demands, as well as the changes in its mission, that have discouraged fathers from joining, or encouraged them to disengage. As we have seen, migrants’ mothers and fathers – COFLEC member and non-member alike – all blame the upsurge in emigration on the economic crisis. The fathers, however, do not share the accusatory discourse of their wives as to its socio-familial origins. The mothers have decided that polygamy is a cause of emigration. Mery states:
Husbands have three or four wives here, they don’t bother with their family. That’s why the children left, but they would never have gone in the boats if they’d had money or a job. (Interview, COFLEC member, Thiaroye, 22 April 2009)
The form taken by the association thus deterred some men from membership and persuaded existing male members to resign. Beyond identifying the missing and a few awareness-raising activities, the migrants’ fathers and other male members of COFLEC seldom attended meetings and performed only certain ‘masculine’ functions: managerial, administrative or logistical (bookkeeping, translation, typing, information technology, and security). The three men regularly present at COFLEC’s headquarters are all employees (bookkeeper, guard, and project officer).
The specific experience of migrants’ wives
Wives do not figure in COFLEC,9 primarily because most migrants were young single men (see Figure 3). Wives have also remained peripheral to the association because a wife and her mother-in-law share neither the same social position nor the same experience of the husband’s/son’s emigration. COFLEC embodies not only a split based around gender relationships, it is also riven by power relationships based around age, matrimonial status and economic status.
Primarily these young wives did not wish, or did not feel empowered, to join an association so prized by their elders – particularly their mothers-in-law, with whom they maintained sometimes conflictual relationships. Once again, the sociability networks underpinning the association explain its attraction to women of a single age-group.
The continuing indifference of young wives is explained by their subordinate position in the family organisation and economy. Juggling the care of young children and domestic duties delegated by their elders, and in some cases income-generating activities, leaves them with little time for voluntary work.
Finally, the wives did not want join an association that was not designed for them. The wives and mothers of migrants do not share the same experience of male migration. The wives played a lesser part in their husband’s departure. They did not fund the passage and had only limited involvement in its preparation. Seven of the eleven interviewees were aware of their husband’s plans, but most admitted to mixed feelings regarding the project. While their image of international emigration was largely positive, they explained that they were apprehensive about their husband leaving while the children were still young and their marriage relatively recent (under five years on average). They would have preferred the husband to delay his departure for a few years. The absence of their spouse also places these young women in a position of dependence on their in-laws and parents for upkeep and shelter. The normal tensions that apply when a wife and mother-in-law live together are aggravated in the absence of the spouse/son – the two main sources of conflict being the migrant’s money and the ‘virtue’ or reputation of the wife. The few wives with a spouse who managed to reach Spain in general receive little money, as the situation of their undocumented husbands is no less insecure. The migrant’s mother deals with any monetary transfers that do take place, provoking disputes over their division. The presumed financial comfort of migrants’ wives serves only to aggravate their problems. Safiétou, a 27-year-old employee in a hairdressing salon, outlines the multiple pressures of her situation:
Things aren’t good right now. It’s too hard. He can’t find work. He doesn’t have papers. He sends no money. I’m in a difficult position and it’s getting worse. [ … ] I’ve had problems with my mother-in-law for a long time, even before he left home. I don’t even know if he sends her money. But I can’t leave the household without my husband’s permission. So I spend the day outside. I am always outside. I go to the salon or call to see my family. I only go back to the house in the evening, to sleep. All I want is to be able to join him [ … ]. My problem is everyone thinks my husband sends me money … because I’m big! I’ve always been drianké,10 even before I was married. And sutura means you have to dress well, even if you’re poor, it’s really important. But it does cause problems. People ask what I’ve done with my husband’s money, when I don’t have a thing. I was redecorating my room one day. My nephew came by and said: ‘Hey, Auntie! Look! You’re doing your room up. I know you’ve got money. Where is it? I know all my uncle’s work goes into your pocket.’ (Interview, migrant’s wife, Thiaroye, 16 April 2009).
When a husband has been posted missing, the position of his wife is even more insecure. Awa, 25-years old, explains that she has had to start a small business in the informal sector to support herself and her two children.11 Her future today is as uncertain as the fate of her missing husband:
I spent 18 months in my husband’s house before I decided to go back and live with my mother. We’re not divorced. There hasn’t been a decision. I can’t do a thing without his parents’ permission. I’m completely dependent on my in-laws. [ … ] I sell shoes to earn a bit of money. There’s only me to look after my son’s education. I didn’t work when I was married. It’s tough at the moment. I’m not going to start again with someone new just yet, because my husband was good to his son. [ … ] It’s all down to me now. I’ll stay with my mother and children for the moment. I’ll make a decision once my husband is declared dead or alive, but I’ll definitely have to find someone special because I have two children and he’ll have to accept them and take care of me. (Interview, wife of a missing migrant, Thiaroye, 14 April 2009)
Taken as a group, these women – the mothers and wives of migrants – have all lost a loved one and had their life turned upside down, yet their experiences differ socially and economically. The ‘women’s category’ is far from forming a discrete class and a homogeneous group. Instead, these women appear divided by power relationships determined by age, marital status and economic status. The example of the Thiaroye wives disproves the optimistic conclusions of studies showing the empowering and emancipating impact of male emigration on the women left behind. Furthermore, we can add that male emigration has failed to produce any social transformations in the power relationships between older and younger women, the wives being caught in a system of multiple domination. This situation may be attributable to the specific context of Thiaroye, where the migrants are mostly dead or missing. The case of these wives, however, invites the prospect of further studies that adopt a longitudinal, process-based perspective on emigration, paying due attention to the diversity and specificity of the domestic, conjugal and socio-economic arrangements of those left behind.
Conclusion
Starting from the gendered and age-specific membership of COFLEC, I have tried to understand why and how the parents and wives of migrants were differently mobilised by the upsurge of migration in 2006. I have shown how the drivers of, and motives for, engagement with the mobilisation against pirogue migration were determined by gender relationships, themselves embedded in other power relationships (age, marital status, economic status), and by migratory experiences and statuses, themselves shaped by intersectional power relationships. Migrants’ mothers experience, perceive and verbalise the issues and impacts of male emigration differently to their husbands and daughters-in-law. Due to gender attributions and their function of social reproduction, the mothers had a greater need to invest in the departure of their children, and then to fight the negative impacts of the clandestine route. This explains why they created and/or joined an organisation that supported a struggle consonant with their expectations and also with their resources and expertise. The specific position of mothers and the existence of age- and gender-specific networks of solidarity and sociability explain the engagement in COFLEC of women with non-emigrant sons. Conversely, the role of the fathers in this mobilisation remained peripheral, first because they were less involved (at least financially) in their son’s emigration, and second because they determinedly clung on to masculine and paternal roles that distanced them from struggling against boat emigration and from membership of COFLEC – an organisation whose form, activities and discourse were labelled too ‘feminine’ and ‘maternal’. Finally, we have seen that migrants’ wives, by virtue of their subordinate position in family organisation and the migration process, were excluded from the mothers’ mobilisation – even though they had every reason to fight against the consequences of the drownings.
In conclusion, this study hopes that it has demonstrated, first, the value of considering migration in a broader sense by reintroducing male and female non-migrants in a process-based, longitudinal analysis of migration paths and experiences that includes collective action, a previously under-documented dimension of migration studies; and, second, the importance of adopting an intersectional approach that transcends the triptych of gender, race and class dominant in fieldwork in the West, and of switching focus from the standard locations and modes of social protest as conventionally studied to give a more detailed analysis of women’s mobilisations on the African continent.