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Migration, masculinity and social class: Insights from Pikine, Senegal

Document Cited in Related
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12385
Date01 August 2018
Published date01 August 2018
AuthorSebastian Prothmann
Migration, masculinity and social class:
Insights from Pikine, Senegal
Sebastian Prothmann*
ABSTRACT
In the shattered economy of Dakar, many young men feel stuck in prolonged bachelorhood.
Handed-down role expectations can often not be met due to dire economic prospects. Drawing
on f‌ieldwork in Pikine, an urban area within the Dakar region of Senegal, between 2011 and
2013, this article ref‌lects upon the relation between risk, migration, social class and masculin-
ity. Through migration to unknown destinations and by enduring the many challenges and
hardships associated with it, in the hope of eventually reaching a higher social class upon
return, young men wish to f‌ix and rewrite their masculine identities. To pursue this aim even
the oddest job in Europe becomes acceptable. At home, however, many work opportunities are
considered to be beneath their social class. Most male urbanites seek jobs that are rewarded
with respect and authority, and often assemble their choices about pursuing certain income-
generating activities considering notions of class.
INTRODUCTION
Discourses on African migration tend to inspire exaggerated, mediated and also fundamentally f‌lawed
popular ideas of desperate and poor Africans trying to reach the shores of Europe. Migrants appear as
passive pawns who are being pushed out of their countries and their continent by macro-level factors
(De Haas, 2007: 49). But the conditions of aspiring migrants and their places of origin are hardly as
desperate as they are portrayed. Migration has long been a reality of life for many Senegalese in a
country where social status is often attributed to migrants (Nyamnjoh, 2010: 2). Poverty, unemploy-
ment and the desire for higher incomes are thus one-sided, inadequate explanations. The search for
better opportunities is not dictated, as Olwig & Sørensen (2002) observe in a critique of the view on
the migrant as a “homo oeconomicus”, conveyed in strict economic calculations.
Alternative readings of migration are offered by Yaya Abdoul Kane, a sociologist, who speaks of
a“symbolic violence”. Young people in Senegal need, as he claims, to emigrate in order to achieve
the status of adult men, to grow up, or, as a Pulaar proverb states: “So boobo yontii, yo o yillo”
(When a young person becomes mature, he must travel) (Kane, 2010; Lambert, 2002: 4). Geogra-
pher Jørgen Carling sees migration as a way of “life-making”(2001: 134), transforming an unful-
f‌illed life into a potentially fulf‌illed one (
Akesson, 2004: 22). It may be seen as a path “towards
adulthood”(Ali, 2007; J
onsson, 2007; Kandel & Massey, 2002), “towards marriageability”
(Masquelier, 2005: 60) or as an individual path towards achieving a fully recognized position as an
adult person in society, “a somebody, a person of status and respect”(Langevang, 2008: 2046).
In the neighbourhoods Wakhinane II Quartier Mballo Der and Sadio Guiss
ein Pikine, an urban
area within the Dakar region of Senegal, many young men I met felt stuck in prolonged
*Independent researcher, Nuremberg
doi: 10.1111/imig.12385
©2017 The Author
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (4) 2018
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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