Transit Imagined: West African Migrants “in transit” in South Africa

This project explores the representations of migration and traveling of West African migrants in South Africa and focuses on the concrete and imaginary aspects of transit, the migrants’ relations to the city and their plans to move to other places, mainly Western destinations like Europe and the U.S. Thus, the project accounts for South Africa’s twofold status as a country of destination and a country of transit and aims at revealing the specific and distinctive features of the city of Johannesburg and their influence on the shaping of the migrants’ representations and aspirations.

The project focuses on migrants from the Ivory Coast and from the Senegal River valley, a region covering parts of Senegal, Mali and Mauritania. Methodologically, it relies on ethnographic fieldwork, including non directive interviews, participant observation and the analysis of cultural productions.

The project is part of the Mitrans project (Migrations de transit en Afrique. Dynamiques locales et globales, gestion politique et expériences d’acteurs), which brings together the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS), the research unit “Migrations et Société” at the University of Nice, France, and the FMSP at the University of the Witwatersrand.