Call for Papers

Ìrìnkèrindò: A Journal of African Migration

Organizes
A One-Day Virtual Conference on

Navigating the Sahara Desert: African Migrants’ Precarious Journeys and Restricted Mobilities

– January 18, 2025 –

Concept Note:

 
The Sahara Desert has historically been a site of trade between African kingdoms and major powers to the North and East of the Mediterranean. Human mobility has been part and parcel of people’s quotidian realities in the region. Yet, over the past two decades, many African cross-Saharan and Sahara-Sahel border towns turned into places of clandestine immigration and human trafficking from the interior of Africa to coastal cities in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morrocco by Africans seeking better opportunities or escaping the perils of violence, poverty, wars, and the absence of sustainable livelihood options. For example, Agadez, the historical city which links Niger and Libya with an active mobile population, is currently inhabited by people who failed to cross to Libya with hopes to reach the coasts of Italy. According to UN reports, the city is an active transit zone of large numbers of people (most of which are women and children) trying to cross the Sahara to Tripoli, and then in death boats across the Mediterranean towards the shores of Italy. With each migrant “paying smugglers between $100 and $500 and purchasing food and lodging on their journey through the Sahara,” (Tinti) Agadez, like other transit and border towns in the region, has become a hub for many people from across West Africa willing to cross the border towards Europe.

For women, the story of trans-Saharan crossing is slightly different. According to the National Statistics Institute of Niger, out of “the 123,886 migrants who transited through the country in 2012, 63,264 were women and 60,622 were men.” (UN Women, 2021: 10). Upon reaching many border and transit towns, women and little girls find themselves at the mercy of smugglers and human traffickers who prey on the “economic and social vulnerabilities” of these women and girls “often using deception to lure their victims into forced labor or abduction.” (UN Women). Previous field reports shed light on individual stories and testimonials shared by these women about their tales of crossing, with an emphasis on their experiences with forced prostitution, risky pregnancies, sexual abuse, human trafficking, arbitrary detention, and forced labor. According to a number of these reports, migration in Africa is increasingly gendered with more women and girls being trafficked every year.

To look into these issues and others, we seek proposals for 15-minute papers to be delivered at a one-day online conference. Contributions are solicited from the humanistic social sciences including, but not limited to history, sociology, political science, anthropology, migration studies, international law, gender studies, media studies, literature, and the arts. Proposals may address, but need not be limited to, the following themes:

• Individual stories/testimonies of border crossing
• Illegal/Clandestine Crossing and Gender-based Violence
• Migrant experiences in transit and border towns
• Tales of border crossing in literature, cinema, and the arts
• Out of Africa migration and media discourse
• Migration during and post-COVID-19 pandemic
• The African Union and migration policies
• African migration and race theory
• African migration and globalization
• Border crossing and the Anthropocene
• Theories on clandestine and illegal migration
• Migration and ecological violence in Africa
• Experiences of African illegal migrants between home and host communities
• Illegal migration and child labor

Works Cited:

“The Gendered Impacts of Migration in Niger,” UN Women. (Link: https://interactive.unwomen.org/africa/niger/en/index.html#full-infographic-1)

Peter Tinti, ”A Dangerous Immigration Crackdown in West Africa,” The Atlantic, February 11, 2018. (Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/niger-europe-migrants-jihad-africa/553019/)

Rapid Assessment of the Situations of Women Migrating from, into and through Niger (Niamey: UN Women, 2021.)

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Please submit 250-word abstracts, short bios, and any inquiries to Dr. Chergui Khedidja at chergui.khadidja@ensb.dz by November 30, 2024.

Timeline:

• Proposal submission deadline: November 30, 2024
• Notification of acceptance: December 15, 2024
• Full paper (4500-6000 words) submission: January 10, 2025
• Date of the conference: January 18, 2025

Conference Convenor:

Dr. Chergui Khedidja (L’Ecole Normale Supérieure de Bouzaréah, Algiers)

Keynote speaker:

Jill Alpes (Ph.D.)
Senior Visiting Fellow – Institute for Migration Studies – Lebanese American University (LAU)
Research Associate – French Institute of the Near East (IFPO)
Research Associate – Centre d’études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques (CESSMA)
Member – Institute Converges Migration (ICM)

Members of the Editorial Board of Ìrìnkèrindò: A Journal of African Migration:

• Prof. Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké Okome (Brooklyn College, CUNY)
• Prof. Saheed Aderinto (Department of History, Florida International University)
• Dr. Khedidja Chergui (Department of English, L’Ecole Normale Supérieure de Bouzaréah, Algiers)
• Dr. Mary Dillard (Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY.)
• Dr. Títílọpẹ Àjàyí (Independent researcher and gender/women, peace and security expert)
• Dr. Naluwembe Binaisa (University College London, UCL)
• Dr. Omololá S Olárìndé (Economics Department, Elizade University, Nigeria.)
• Dr. Adeyemi S. Badewa (Center for African Studies, The University of Pittsburgh)
• Dr. Gbemisola Abiola (Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA)

Publication:

Papers submitted to the conference will go through a blind peer-review process to be then published as a special issue in Ìrìnkèrindò: A Journal of African Migration. Full papers of 6000-words max (notes and references included) are to be submitted to the conference convenor by January 10, 2025.