Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T04:57:09.768Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Going to the City … and Coming Back? Turnaround Migration Among the Jola of Senegal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Olga F. Linares
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Jola of Lower Casamance in southern Senegal are involved in ‘turnaround’ (or circular), rural to urban migration. Using data from three Jola communities located in different geographical and cultural sub-regions, this article compares the dynamics of migration among the villages and explores variations along gender and generational lines. Special emphasis is placed on the number of young unmarried girls and boys who return to the village during the rainy season to help their parents with agricultural work. It has been argued that the movement of people from the countryside to the city has had a negative effect on local food production. ‘Turnaround migration’ mitigates to some extent the impact of the rural exodus on rural communities. It has important implications of its own for the future of agriculture in the various Jola sub-regions.

Résumé

Les Jolas de la Basse Casamance, au sud du Sénégal, connaissent une migration rurale-urbaine circulaire. A partir de données sur trois communautés jolas de sous-régions géographiques et culturelles différentes, cet article compare la dynamique de migration au sein des villages et explore les variations selon des critères de sexe et de génération. Il met particulièrement l'accent sur le nombre de jeunes gens non mariés qui retournent au village à la saison des pluies pour aider leurs parents aux travaux agricoles. Certains ont affirmé que le mouvement des populations de la campagne vers la ville a eu un effet négatif sur la production vivrière locale. La migration circulaire atténue dans une certaine mesure l'impact de l'exode rural sur les communautés rurales. Ses implications sont importantes pour l'avenir de l'agriculture dans les sous-régions jolas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 73 , Issue 1 , February 2003 , pp. 113 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barker, Jonathan. 1989. Rural Communities under Stress: peasant farmers and the state in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berthélemy, J-CSeek, A. and Vourc’h, A. 1996. Growth in Senegal: a lost opportunity? Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.Google Scholar
Cleveland, David. 1991. ‘Migration in West Africa: a savanna village perspective’, Africa 61 (2), 222-6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colvin, Lucie G. 1981. ‘Introduction and regional historical background’, in Colvin, L. G.Ba, C.Barry, B.Faye, J.Hamer, A.Soumah, M. and Sow, F.The Uprooted of the Western Sahel: migrants’ quest f or cash in the Senegambia, pp. 3-26. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
de Jonge, Klaas, van der Klei, J. M.Melink, H. and Storm, R. 1978. Sénégal : projet d'une recherche multidisciplinaire sur les facteurs socio-économiques favorisant la migration en Basse Casamance et sur les consequences pour les lieux d'origine. Rapport final. Leiden: Afrika Studiecentrum.Google Scholar
Diop, Marième. 1989. ‘Un example de non insertion urbaine : le cas de migrants saisonnières de Basse-Casamance à Dakar’, in Antoine, P. and Coulibaly, S. (eds), L’Insertion urbaine des migrantes en Afrique, pp. 79-89. Paris: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
Eades, Jeremy (ed.). 1987. Migrant Workers and the Social Order. London and New York: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Enel, C. and Pison, G. 1992. ‘Sexual relations in the rural area of Mlomp (Casamance, Senegal)’, in Dyson, T. (ed.), Sexual Behaviour and Networking: anthropological and sociocultural studies on the transmission of HIV, pp. 249-67. Liège: Ordina.Google Scholar
Enel, CPison, G. and Lefebvre, M. 1994. ‘Migration and marriage change: a case study of Mlomp, a Joola village in southern Senegal’, in Bledsoe, C. and Pison, G. (eds), Nuptiality in sub-Saharan Africa: contemporary anthropological and demographic perspectives, pp. 92-113. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Gugler, J. and Flanagan, W. G. 1978. Urbanisation and Social Change in West Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, Jane I. 1987. ‘Introduction’, in Guyer, J. I. (ed.), Feeding African Cities: studies in regional social history, pp. 1-54. Manchester: Manchester University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Hamer, Alice. 1981. ‘Diola women and migration: a case study’, in Colvin, et al. (eds), The Uprooted of the Western Sahel: migrants’ quest for cash in the Senegambia, pp. 183-203. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Hamer, Alice. 1983. ‘Tradition and Change: a social history of Diola women (southwest Senegal) in the twentieth century’. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor MI: University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Hart, Keith. 1987. ‘Rural-urban migration in West Africa’, in Eades, J. (ed.), Migrants, Workers, and the Social Order, pp. 65-81. London and New York: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1963. Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Reprinted 1997, Hamburg: LIT Verlag; Oxford: James Currey, for the International African Institute.)Google Scholar
Lambert, Michael C. 1994. ‘Searching across the Divide: history, migration, and the experience of place in a multilocal Senegalese community’. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University. Ann Arbor MI: University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Lambert, Michael C. 1998. ‘Violence and the war of words: ethnicity v. nationalism in the Casamance’, Africa 68 (4), 585-602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linares, Olga F. 1992. Power, Prayer and Production: the Jola of Casamance, Senegal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Linares, Olga F. 1996. ’Cultivating biological and cultural diversity: urban farming in Casamance, Senegal’, Africa 66 (1), 104-21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mark, Peter. 1977. ‘The rubber and palm produce trades and the Islamisation of the Diola of Boulouf (Casamance), 1890-1920’, Bulletin de VIF AN, 39, series B (2), pp. 341-61.Google Scholar
Mark, Peter. 1978. ‘Urban migration, cash cropping, and calamity: the spread of Islam among the Diola Boulouf (Senegal), 1900-40’, African Studies Review 21 (2), 1-14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marut, Jean-Claude. 1994. ‘Le dessous des cartes casamançaises’, in Barbier-Wiesser, F-G. (ed.), Comprendre la Casamance : chronique d'une intégration contrastée, pp. 194-211. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Marut, Jean-Claude. 1995. ‘Solution militaire en Casamance’, Politique africaine 58, 163-9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mollett, J. A. (ed.).1991. Migrants in Agricultural Development: a study of intrarural migration. New York: New York University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pison, G.Hill, K. H.Cohen, B. and Foote, K. A. (eds).1995. Population Dynamics of Senegal. Washington DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Pison, G.Trape, J.Lefebvre, M. and Enel, C. 1993. ‘Rapid decline in child mortality in a rural area of Senegal’, International Journal of Epidemiology 22 (1), 72-80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rain, David. 1999. Eaters of the Dry Season: circular labour migration in the West African Sahel. Boulder CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Reboussin, Daniel A. 1995. ‘From Affinam-Boutem to Dakar: migration from the Casamance, life in the urban environment of Dakar, and the resulting evolutionary change in local Diola organizations’. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida. Ann Arbor MI: University Microfilm.Google Scholar
Repertoire des villages. 1958 1964 1972 1988. République du Senegal, Direction de la prévision et de la statistique. Dakar: Ministère de l’économie, des finances et du plan.Google Scholar
der Klei, Jos M. 1985. ‘Articulation of modes of production and the beginning of labour migration among the Diola of Senegal’, in van Binsbergen, W. and Geschiere, P. (eds), Old Modes of Production and Capitalist Encroachment: anthropological explorations in Africa, pp. 71-93. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
der Klei, Jos M. 1987. ‘ L’histoire migratoire d'un village diola (Casamance, Senegal) : une analyse synchronique et diachronique’. Paper presented at the meeting on ‘Migration and Rural Development in Tropical Africa’, Afrika-Studiecen-trum, Leiden, November.Google Scholar
Verheye, Willy H. 2000. ‘Farming will only be sustainable when local people are truly involved’, Nature 408, 133.Google Scholar