Keywords

8.1 Introduction

Since the 1990s, Brazil has gradually taken a complex and important, although in quantitative terms peripheral, position in Senegalese migrations and is more widely spoken of in the context of Senegalese mobilities. Higher education students were the first to migrate in small numbers to Brazil in the 1990s. This migration was partly promoted through government programmes and, although later movements are barely connected to it, a clear separation is not feasible. The second important movement involved Brazil as a transit country for migration to Argentina, which started in the late 1990s (Minvielle, 2015; Vammen, 2019). Due to the absence of an Argentinian diplomatic mission in Senegal, migrants instead applied for a visa at the Brazilian Embassy in Dakar, with the objective of using the country as an entry point in South America. There are roughly 3000 Senegalese living in Brazil’s southern neighbouring country and many of them entered Argentina by crossing the border from Brazil (Kleidermacher, 2016).

Although there have been isolated cases of Senegalese settling earlier in Brazil, the available statistics as well as interviews and conversations with Senegalese immigrants and Brazilian migration scholars all indicate that the number of Senegalese residing in South America’s biggest country started to grow slowly around 2008 and increased strongly between 2013 and 2016 (Jung, 2019). Some 824 residence permits were issued for Senegalese in Brazil between 2010 and 2017. The statistics for asylum requests by Senegalese since 2010 indicate a higher number and greater increase of Senegalese immigration – in total, 8486 Senegalese applied for asylum between 2010 and 2018 (BRASIL, 2020). However, for Senegalese, the likelihood of gaining asylum is very small. Only 14 out of 5281 requests had been granted by May 2017.Footnote 1 Nevertheless, most Senegalese use this process to gain temporary permission to stay and work in Brazil and, later, to try to get a residence permit through other procedures. Special situations or cases omitted from the law were the legal frame for most residence permits issued to Senegalese between 2010 and 2015 (Silva et al., 2018). In November 2019 the Brazilian government decided to allow Senegalese with an open asylum request to apply for a residence permit through a special procedure (BRASIL, 2019). It is important to point out that the statistics only represent those who are officially registered in Brazil or have applied for asylum. ‘Illegal’ entries and Senegalese who had already left the country are not captured by these statistics. Consequently, only a rough estimate of the Senegalese community is possible.

Senegalese immigration in Brazil is closely linked to economic and geopolitical developments on different scales, including Brazil’s high national economic growth during the first decade of the twenty-first century and the 2008 economic crisis – with its strong impact on countries like Spain and Italy, both important destinations for Senegalese migrants (see Flikweert et al. Chap. 4). Moreover, this period is characterised by increasing difficulties for Senegalese in migrating, whether ‘regularly’ or ‘irregularly’, to Europe due to restrictive immigration policies and migration control (Adepoju et al., 2009; Finotelli & Sciortino, 2013; Casas-Cortes et al., 2014). Many of my interviewees stated that they applied first for a visa for a European country or the USA but their requests were denied. Brazil, together with Cape Verde and Argentina, from where migrants moved later to Brazil, were considered as alternatives for emigration. Some authors also suggest that Brazil is an important transit point for migrants trying to move to North America (Marcelino & Cerrutti, 2011; Minvielle, 2015).

Brazil serves as a hub for Senegalese multinational migration, both as a destination and as the origin of movements that are connected to a variety of regions, including countries in Africa, Europe and South and North America. Some Senegalese pioneers did not come from their home country but from their last country of residence. These multinational migrations are an important factor which helped to put Brazil on the ‘migratory map’ of Senegalese. They are facilitated through and shaped by transnational networks and ties that connect people from different national backgrounds at different places but are, simultaneously, the cause for the formation of these transnational spaces (Faist, 2000) by creating connections to new places. These movements question the dichotomy of country of origin and destination in migration studies and the assumption of migration as a unique and linear act, which starts with the development of migratory aspirations in the country of origin and ends with the arrival and integration at the destination.

This chapter focuses on multinational migrations by Senegalese migrants in Brazil, addressing, on the one hand, already-occurred movements from Cape Verde and Argentina to Brazil and, on the other, aspirations to migrate further – to Europe, North America or Australia. The study draws on empirical data resulting from qualitative, ethnographic fieldwork in four very different Brazilian cities: São Paulo, Praia Grande, Caxias do Sul and Passo Fundo. The results show how transnational ties and practices, involving a plurality of actors and places, influence multinational migration. The study thus questions not only the focus on ties which connect country of origin and destination but also the ethnic lens in migration research (Glick Schiller et al., 2008). Moreover, it highlights how migratory capital (Paul, 2015) develops at different places and moments of the migratory trajectory. Finally, the results draw attention to the impact of temporary forms of mobility and migratory experiences on decisions, intentions and strategies for onward movement.

8.2 Aspirations and Capability in Multinational Migration

A growing number of scholarly accounts call for a consideration of the fluidity and non-linearity of migration processes (Amit & Knowles, 2017; Amrith, 2020) and the dynamic nature of migration intentions and decisions (Wissink et al., 2013). Due to structural factors, such as immigration laws and economic opportunities, migration has become increasingly complex, often including long and perilous journeys, transiting through a variety of countries and regions and consisting of phases of mobility and immobility, emplacement and displacement. In this context a clear distinction between transit and destination country becomes less evident and the origin–destination model reveals itself as increasingly unable to capture migration strategies and the complexity of migration processes. Moreover, migration intentions and aspirations foreseen in migratory projects cannot be understood as closed or defined at the beginning of a journey (Janssens, 2018). Migrants adapt to changing conditions. They reflect constantly on the circumstances they encounter, identify new opportunities and obstacles and react to them (Schapendonk & Steel, 2014; Zeleke, 2017). Migratory aspirations may also change during the migration and the life course, for instance by becoming a parent. Consequently, migration itself should not be understood as a linear process – as if migrants follow and execute, step by step, a plan elaborated at the place of origin – or solely as the unique movement from one country to another. Migrants aspire to achieve something by moving and not just to move. Hernández-Carretero (2017) argues that emigration and return should be understood as stages in the same project of socio-economic prosperity. In this sense, multinational migration can be examined as further stages of the same project and not as a new one.

Multiple movements between a variety of countries and settlement in more than two countries in one’s life course are not rare cases in today’s world. There exists a range of different names and concepts to describe the continuation of migratory movements, most prominently the terms ‘onward’ and ‘stepwise’ migration (see the review by Ahrens and King, Chap. 1). While there are many similarities between them, they are not interchangeable. Onward migration can be defined as a secondary migratory movement, which occurs after living for a certain period of time in one destination country and is directed to another country, which is not the one of origin (King & Karamoschou, 2019). It is not planned or intended in advance on departure from the country of origin. Some authors emphasise that onward migration is a reaction to changing circumstances at the destination. The 2008 economic crisis, for instance, triggered movements within the European Union of migrants who settled first in Southern European countries (Ramos, 2018; King & Karamoschou, 2019) or resulted in intentions or the desire to do so (Esteves et al., 2017). However, onward migration is not only caused by extraordinary events. The desire for self-improvement – for example educational or economic – and the search for a better future for one’s children or family can be important reasons for moving again to another country. These desires result partly from a dissatisfaction with opportunities in the host society and experiences of discrimination (Ahrens et al., 2016). With regards to onward movements within the EU, various authors highlight how the acquisition of EU member-state citizenship is a decisive element both as a facilitator and a motive for onward migration (Ahrens et al., 2016; McGarrigle & Ascensão, 2017; De Hoon et al., 2019; Della Puppa & Morad, 2019). Favourable economic conditions and immigration policies may not be found at the same place and migrants use multiple movements as a strategy to achieve them in different countries.

Stepwise migration describes the movement to a country with the intention to leave it again and continue the migratory trajectory at a later stage. It ‘includes multiple stops (of substantive duration) in various intermediate locations as part of an intentional, hierarchical progression toward an individual migrant’s preferred destination’ (Paul, 2011, 1844). Stepwise migration can be understood as a multistage migration strategy, which migrants apply to move up a hierarchy of destinations. Insufficient migratory capital to overcome different types of barriers, for instance restrictive immigration policies, prevents migrants from going directly to a preferred destination. Stepwise migration allows migrants to acquire and accumulate migratory capital in its different forms (Bourdieu, 1986), which can support further movements. In her research about stepwise migration by Filipino migrants, Paul (2015) shows that the next step of a migratory project is not always predictable and previously planned. The project needs to be open to alterations and allow the migrant to be flexible and react to the circumstances. Paul also indicates that a migrant may have a range of preferred destinations and not just one. Destination hierarchies orient migration journeys. They order the world according to a normative scale of values, expectations and meanings. This ‘cosmology of destinations’ ‘connects shared imaginaries about places with moral judgements and values related to migration destinations and goals’ (Belloni, 2020, 7). Values, expectations and meanings are not only attributed to a country but also to the migrant. In other words, the moral worthiness of a migrant overlaps with the attractiveness of the country which he/she was able to reach (Belloni, 2020, 2).

While, in theory, the timing of the intention to move again draws a clear line between onward and stepwise migration, in reality, this differentiation may be more blurred. The different periods of stepwise migration can extend to several years. At the same time, a migrant may leave the supposed destination already after a short period of time. Several studies about transit migration and migration trajectories show that intentions need to be conceptualised in consideration of their dynamic and fluid nature (Collyer & de Haas, 2012; Wissink et al., 2013; Schapendonk, 2017; Zeleke, 2017). Paul and Yeoh (2020) suggest multinational migration as an umbrella term to embrace the different types of multiple movements within one’s lifetime. They define multinational migration as the movements of international migrants across more than one overseas destination with significant time spent in each country. These movements are composed of ‘complex, dynamic, and open-ended trajectories that are contingent on shifting and uneven capitals, structured by fluid multinational migration infrastructures, and shaped by migrants’ evolving geographical imaginaries, aspirations and sense of themselves’ (Paul & Yeoh, 2020, p. 3). The trajectories do not necessarily move up a hierarchy of countries but can also include downwards and lateral movements. They can consist of circular and repetitive movements, not only unidirectional ones. Intentions for multinational migration can be planned before leaving the country of origin or arise during the journey. Finally, Paul and Yeoh highlight that, beside migrants’ capital, it is the embeddedness in migration infrastructures (Xiang & Lindquist, 2014; Lin et al., 2017), which enables or restrains multinational migration.

The concept of multinational migration describes migration as open-ended trajectories during which migration aspirations and intentions as well as the ability to move evolve and change. These evolutions and changes are often determined by specific circumstances which the migrants encounter during their trajectory. Graw and Schielke’s (2012) conceptualisation of migration as a horizon of imagination and action is a useful tool with which to approach the embeddedness of migration processes at places. A horizon, in its literal sense as the outer realm of the vision, changes with movement. Following Graw and Schielke’s understanding, horizon refers also to what is familiar, known and imaginable for a person. In this sense, movement indicates not only a change of the horizon of the physical space but also a possible change of perspective and expectations. These shifts of the horizon result, for example, from new acquaintances, new information, exposure to different sources of media or the acquiring of new migratory capital. However, they can also be an outcome of emerging opportunities and specific circumstances. These opportunities can channel movements in directions that were not previously intended or foreseen and can trigger unplanned departures. Carling and Haugen (2020) suggest the concept of circumstantial migration to describe the unpredictable ways in which migration trajectories and experiences unfold under the influence of coincidence and micro-level contexts. Coincidental factors that act at the micro-level include chance encounters with others, good or bad luck at critical junctures and the accidental discovery of opportunities. The authors argue that the consideration and analysis of coincidence and micro-level contexts allows us to understand ‘the twists and turns as constitutive elements of many migration experiences’ – i.e., the non-linearity of migration – as well as the ‘prominent role circumstances play under certain migration regimes’ (Carling & Haugen, 2020, p. 2780). Moreover, it allows the examination of the interrelation between plans and serendipities. The movements of Senegalese migrants in Brazil include both onward and stepwise migration and often can be defined as circumstantial migration. I decided to opt for the term ‘multinational migration’, since its definition incorporates the movement of all three types.

8.3 Methodology

The empirical data presented in this chapter result from four periods of fieldwork, each lasting from 2 to 4 months and conducted between 2017 and 2019. Using biographical interviews and ethnographic methods, I studied the trajectories of Senegalese migrants in the city of São Paulo and in Praia Grande – a coastal town which is located about 80 km east of the metropolis – and in the two medium-sized cities of Caxias do Sul and Passo Fundo, which are important industrial and agricultural sites in Brazil’s most southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. The four cities were chosen due to their importance in Senegalese immigration in Brazil. São Paulo, Caxias do Sul and Passo Fundo all have relatively large Senegalese communities but are also important for other forms of mobility and circulation of Senegalese within the country. Praia Grande is a popular, temporary destination for Senegalese street-hawkers, who sell their products on the beaches during the Brazilian summer months. The research was part of a wider doctoral project about Senegalese migration to Brazil. For this chapter, I focus on 11 interviews with Senegalese migrants who either have experience of multinational migration or expressed their intention to move again to another country. Except for one interview via Skype with a Senegalese who moved from Brazil to Portugal, all interviews were conducted during my fieldwork in Brazil, using either Portuguese or French. I translated the interview passages used in this chapter to English. Additionally, a migration history chart or MHC (Carling, 2012) was elaborated together with the migrants (see Fig. 8.1).

Fig. 8.1
A table with 54 rows and 7 columns. It includes the date, number, migration history chart, name, place, and age on top, and the years from 2019 to 1970 in reverse order on the vertical axis. The chart illustrates the events of divorce and marriage at different timelines.

Example of a migration history chart

Full size image

Internal movements – both in Senegal and Brazil – and international movements were recorded in the MHC and are represented as horizontal segments of the trajectory. Vertical segments indicate the time spent at a specific place. The temporal axis of the MHC was divided in years and consequently movements of shorter duration were not recorded. However, during the interviews it became clear that these short-term movements were often important for later decisions about multinational migration. In the beginning the objective was to collect information about the family’s migration history but the size of many families with members who reside in a great variety of countries complicated this task. Instead, the MHC focused on the life trajectory of the migrant and those family members or friends who influenced it more directly. Figure 8.1 is an example of a digitalised version of the MHC and shows the trajectories of SadioFootnote 2 (S.), who will be presented below. Sadio has 13 siblings in total, all from his father’s polygamous marriage, but only his older brother (O.B.) and his youngest brother (Y.B.) emigrated too and are included in the MHC. Furthermore, the MHC indicates the year of Sadio’s marriage and divorce, which both influenced his movements, and the birth of his daughter (D.). F. is a friend, whose acquaintance Sadio made in Cape Verde in 2009, and who influenced his movement to Brazil.

MHC and interviews are complementary tools for the study of migration trajectories. The MHC helped the interviewee to recall the timing of movements by relating them to events, year or age (see Carling, 2012, pp. 150–151). Its visual aspect facilitates the identification of stages of life, the interconnections between different individual trajectories and transnational social relations. In most cases, the elaboration of the MHC took place before conducting the interview. The movements and stages of life identified through the MHC later served as an orientation during the interview. In the two cases in which the MHC was only elaborated at a later stage, it allowed to cross check the timing of movements indicated in the interview. More in-depth information about migration decisions and movements were collected through the interviews. Moreover, ethnographical methods in the form of informal conversations and observations were important for the data collection and noted in a field diary.

With one exception, all the cases analysed here are men. This reflects the gender distribution of Senegalese immigrants in Brazil, who are mainly men between 19 and 50 years old (Tedesco & Mello, 2015; Herédia & Gonçalves, 2017). Only 1.6 per cent of an immigration stock of 3173 Senegalese in the state of Rio Grande do Sul are women (Uebel, 2017). This is not surprising, since Senegalese emigration is generally rather a male domain (SENEGAL, 2018). The participants are mainly from the region of Dakar, different cities in the so-called peanut basin and the Casamance and have diverse ethnic backgrounds. Their age ranges from 22 to 47 years and their civil status includes unmarried, married and separated. Some migrants originate from poor families, while others have a middle-class background with fathers who worked as public servants. The class background reflects itself in some cases in the level of education, which include qualifications in primary and secondary school and academic diplomas as well as Quran schools.

8.4 Multinational Migration to and from Brazil

8.4.1 Multinational Migration from Cape Verde

The Cape Verde archipelago lies about 500 km west of Senegal’s coast. The multinational migration of (West) African migrants from Cape Verde to Brazil can be understood as a new chapter in the archipelago’s long history as an intersection between Africa, South America and Europe. Due to their strategic position in the Atlantic, the islands were an important transit point in both the transatlantic slave trade and, later, for steamships, which needed to reload coal for their voyages between Europe and South America. Cape Verde is widely known for its long history of emigration (Batalha & Carling, 2008) but, since the second half of the 1990s, the country has witnessed the arrival of citizens of ECOWAS member states.Footnote 3 Especially in the beginning, the islands were considered as a stepping-stone for migrants aiming to reach the EU. However, restrictive migration policies in EU countries, together with increasing border controls in Cape Verdean waters – for example, in the form of military cooperation with European countries – hindered these movements (Marcelino & Farahi, 2011; Furtado, 2013). Additionally, a constant economic growth, especially due to the booming construction and tourism sectors and both lower financial burdens with regards to the migration and legal entry barriers in Cape Verde, attracted a growing number of West African migrants, among them Senegalese, who are the second biggest group of citizens from other ECOWAS countries (Jung, 2015). As movements from Cape Verde to Europe became more difficult, migrants started to look westwards for alternatives. The following three cases are examples of this reorientation.

Sadio is a 47-year-old Fulani from the region of Kolda in the Casamance. It was difficult to gain a living and support the family in Senegal and, after he separated from his wife, with whom he has one child, he decided to emigrate to Cape Verde in 2008. He moved to the capital, Praia, where a friend and his older brother already lived, with the expectation that it would be easier to gain a living there. However, from the beginning he did not see Cape Verde as his final destination. Instead, he intended to move again to Spain, Portugal or Brazil. In Praia he worked in construction but his revenue was not enough to really improve his and his family’s life. The situation became even more difficult with the decline of job opportunities in the building sector. ‘I had to leave there, otherwise nothing would get better’, Sadio told me. His intention to move to Spain, Portugal or Brazil remained strong but it was not easy to realise. Getting a visa for the two European countries was too difficult and soon he abandoned the idea to move there. Through Guinea-Bissauan and Senegalese merchants who travelled regularly for their commerce between Cape Verde and Brazil and a friend who had already migrated to Brazil in 2012, he informed himself about the possibilities and regulations to move to South America instead. Visa regulations for Brazil were much easier but his next migratory step was delayed. He explained to me the financial reasons for this delay. ‘[M]oney was very difficult to earn. I also had to help my family in Senegal. I needed some time to save the money necessary to leave. It took a while’.

It took him 8 years before he was finally able to leave Cap Verde. He travelled to Brazil on a one-month business visa in October 2016. After arriving in Recife, in the north-east of Brazil, Sadio went to Fortaleza, where a Senegalese friend with whom he had worked in Cape Verde lived. The friend helped him to apply for asylum. He stayed for 4 months in Fortaleza, waiting for news from another Senegalese, also an acquaintance from Cape Verde, who was looking for a job for him in Passo Fundo, the city where Saido now lives and works. Sadio did not only consider Cape Verde as a stepping-stone to another destination, which turned out to be Brazil but he also aspires to climb higher up his hierarchy of destinations and move to Europe or North America after getting a residence permit or Brazilian nationality. This highlights the complex detours which migrants need to make to arrive at the top of their hierarchy. The different steps of Sadio’s trajectory were always facilitated through personal contacts, which helped him to prepare his movements or to get the legal documents and find employment in Brazil. However, his migration aspirations were also reinforced through these contacts and the experience of friends who had already moved to Brazil or who circulate between the South American country and Cape Verde.

In contrast to Sadio, 47-year-old Mamadou, a Kaolack native and father of three children, did not plan his move to Brazil in advance. His intentions to move there developed naturally, as he puts it, in the pursuit of personal development. His migration journey started in 2004, shortly after his first child was born, when he decided to move to Praia to discover the world outside Senegal. After several jobs, Mamadou took advantage of his training as an electrician and successfully opened his own cybercafé 6 years later. His wife and first daughter joined him and another daughter was born in Cape Verde. Nevertheless, after another 3 years and a short vacation in Brazil, he developed the idea of moving again. Being the owner of a small business allowed him to apply for a business visa at the Brazilian embassy in Praia. During his first trip to Brazil in early 2013, Mamadou visited a Guinea-Bissauan friend in Fortaleza, whom he had met earlier in Cape Verde. The dimension of Brazil impressed him and he saw opportunities to achieve more in his life, as he explained in an interview in December 2017:

You always want something and when you get there, you want something else. This is a normal evolution. I did not run away from Cape Verde. I did not have any specific problems. […] I worked normally, I had the documents, I had the residency, everything. I visited Brazil once for a 15-day vacation. When I visited Brazil those 15 days, I saw that Brazil is very big. There are a lot of things to do. Cape Verde is very small. For those who want to do many things, the space is limited. So, I told myself: ‘I am going to Brazil, I think I will be able to do some things there’.

It would be wrong to limit his desire for improvement solely to economic aspects. During the interviews, he emphasised regularly the importance of challenges for his personal development. ‘I do not want to stay at a place where my head does not work’ was one of his expressions. In one of our first conversations he also stated the increasing criminality and insecurity in Praia as another reason for his desire to leave Cape Verde. Although he relativised the importance of this aspect during the interview, he still said:

Cape Verde is very good, but when I left there, there were security problems too, mainly for foreigners. Sometimes, when you are a foreign worker, there is a situation. There are a lot of young guys who do not want to work. They may mug you. We saw many cases [like that].

After a few months back in Cape Verde, he returned with a three-month business visa to Brazil in August 2013. This time, after arriving in Fortaleza, he continued his journey to Rio Grande do Sul. He knew that there already existed an established Senegalese community and his nephew had moved there from Cape Verde in 2010. However, Mamadou had still not decided to stay in Brazil.

Even in these three months I still did not decide to stop, because I left everything ready in Cape Verde. I did not sell the store. I did not sell anything. I left a friend taking care of it, because I did not know if I would be able to stay here. In these three months, I looked around. I looked at the procedure of documentation, because I always said ‘If I do not have a legal document to stay here, I will go back’. I did not want to stay here in a clandestine way. So, during those three months, I got everything ready. I saw that I could wait for a while. Because, anyway, if I am not able to do anything, I will go back to Cape Verde.

During his first journey to Brazil, his wife took care of the business but, this time, Mamadou intended to stay in Brazil. Therefore, his wife and daughters returned to Senegal to live closer to the wider family in Kaolack and a friend temporarily managed the cybercafé. Mamadou used his cybercafé as a safety-net in two ways. First, he knew that he could always return to Cape Verde without the necessity to start something new in the case that he could not stay legally or lacked economic opportunities in Brazil. Secondly, he continued to receive a revenue, which helped him to cope until he opened a new store in Passo Fundo and started to earn money in Brazil. When I met Mamadou for the first time in December 2017, he was already well established but had not lost his desire for improvement and challenges. In 2019, he started a technical course at a federal institute in Passo Fundo with the objective of improving his knowledge of informatics and expanding the services offered at his shop. He told me that he dreams of bringing his wife and three children to Brazil but currently lacks the financial means. He also never excluded a further onward movement. Mamadou always emphasised that his trajectory depends on the circumstances and opportunities which he will encounter and he never wanted to commit himself to a specific place. This even takes into account a desired but not determined return to Senegal at a later stage. Mamadou’s movement was facilitated and shaped through transnational practises. His case highlights how short-term mobility can lead to the development of multinational migration intentions. The experiences he made during his vacation were crucial for his decision. Furthermore, due to the continuous income he received from his business in Praia, he was later able to see how things would develop in Brazil. However, this form of exploratory transnationalism (Dimitriadis, 2021) clearly depends on different forms of capital, the most obvious being the financial means to visit a place before taking a decision. Sadio did not possess the resources for it.

This also holds true for the last example. Abdoulaye is a 31-year-old single man from Pikine on the periphery of Dakar. After a friend, a Senegalese immigrant in Cape Verde, told him about the opportunities there, he moved to Praia in 2016. He aspired to new experiences and to earn enough money to realise his own projects and support his family. For nearly 2 years he worked as a street hawker in Praia. As in the case of Mamadou, his intention for multinational migration developed only after moving to Cape Verde. As the following interview extract (São Paulo, February 2019) shows, it was, on the one hand, the result of his desire to migrate out of Africa – this was reinforced by friends who told him about Brazil and the success which Senegalese have there – and, on the other, of specific circumstances.

I did not want to leave at first, because I started to work well there. […]. I did very well there. But we stayed in Africa. This is South America. Brazil. I wanted to know something from somewhere else. Brazil and Europe. I heard friends talking about Brazil, that Brazil is good for us. Senegalese are doing well there. The money from Brazil is also better than in Cape Verde. It is good for us to go to Brazil and work there. I did not ask for a visa for Brazil, because I had a friend who knew a Brazilian who has a sailboat there. My friend called me. He said that a boat is coming that will go to Brazil. I told myself ‘I want to go. I will go there’.

Abdoulaye already wished to have experiences outside Africa and heard about possibilities in Brazil before his friend told him about the boat sailing to Brazil. However, in the end, it was the sudden emergence of an opportunity to go to Brazil that was crucial for his decision to move onwards and his intention became concrete. He paid 1000 euros for a place on a catamaran and, together with 24 other migrants – most of them Senegalese – and two Brazilian smugglers, he left Mindelo in Cape Verde with Recife as the destination. The journey was supposed to take 18 days but the mast broke at one point. The catamaran floated around until Brazilian fishermen rescued them close to the coast of Maranhão after 35 days at sea. According to Abdoulaye, this was only the second time that migrant-smuggling by sea from Cape Verde to Brazil occurred but, due to the dramatic events, it was also the last time. It would be an exaggeration to speak in this case about an established migration industry (Cranston et al., 2018). Nevertheless, the smuggling can be understood as part of the development of migration infrastructures between the two countries which involves different actors, modes of transportation and regulatory processes. In our second interview, Abdoulaye told me about two Senegalese friends with Cape Verdean citizenship who entered Brazil on a tourist visa some months after him. While Abdoulaye lacked the different forms of migratory capital in comparison to his friends or Mamadou and Sadio, who both travelled on a business visa to Brazil, it was not this insufficiency which determined his way of travelling. Instead, it was the advent of an opportunity that prompted him to move to Brazil. He did not try or even look for other ways to enter Brazil.

8.4.2 Multinational Migration from Argentina

Senegalese immigration in Argentina and Brazil are intertwined with each other in many forms and onward movements are one example of this relationship. Senegalese migrants move regularly between the two South American countries, sometimes in response to economic crises in the respective country, to buy and sell goods in two different markets or in the search for legal documents. While, in the beginning, Brazil was mainly a transit country for Senegalese migrants heading to Argentina, it later became a destination of movements in the other direction. One example for both movements is the case of Assis, a young unmarried man from the region of Thiès. In 2009, at only 19 years old, he felt the pressure and the desire to emigrate. After an unsuccessful attempt to get a visa for the USA, where his older brother lives, he decided to emigrate to Argentina, where another brother already resided. He travelled to Brazil on a tourist visa and visited several cities on his way southwards. Senegalese migrants in Rio de Janeiro told him that street trading works better in Argentina than in Brazil. This reinforced his decision to go to Argentina. However, the reality in Buenos Aires was much harder than he thought, as he said in his interview in Caxias do Sul in April 2018.

[M]y brother even showed me how to sell. But I cannot sell. I did not know how to sell. I never did [before]. […] You stay in a place like that. But when the inspectors arrive, you have to run around or you have to keep changing places. In Argentina, people go to the bars. [….] And in the bars, when you get there, the Argentinians are very bad. They treat us badly. […] Sometimes you get there, they take your stuff, they offer you beer or throw it at you. Madness, you know? But I stayed there for six months, working as a street hawker. […] Almost twice a week, every week, we had fights with the Argentinians. There was a time when the police already knew me. They got there: ‘Bah, you again’. […] They bother you a lot. Then, after Brazil started to give out documents, I came back here. First, I came to get a document, then I went back to Argentina.

Selling in the streets and bars of Buenos Aires constantly created conflicts between Assis, Argentinians and the police. When Assis received the information that ‘Brazil gives documents’ to immigrants, he refers here to the general amnesty of 2009; he did not hesitate and decided to go to Passo Fundo to request his own documents. Although he could have applied for a residence permit in any Brazilian city, he preferred the town in Rio Grande do Sul because he had heard about another Senegalese who had lived there for 10 years. They did not know each other before but Assis thought that, due to their common nationality, the man would support him like all Senegalese help each other.

In Passo Fundo there was a guy who helped in the way Senegalese help each other. That person was incredible. He did so much for others. He helped everyone who went there to get a job. We, everybody who went there, a lot of people learned from him. […] When we arrived there, he had already been there for 10 years and has never seen another Senegalese or returned to Senegal. He was lost here. When [we came] he was so happy and said: ‘I never thought that one day another Senegalese would arrive’. He helped us a lot. […] That is [the reason] why everyone went to Passo Fundo. Here in Brazil, the first place that received Senegalese immigrants was Passo Fundo because of him.

He first went to Brazil just to get his residence permit, which would allow him free movement within the MERCOSULFootnote 4 zone and returned to Argentina after the successful request. However, his experience in Passo Fundo and the prospect of formal employment there changed his intentions and a few weeks later he decided to move back to Brazil. His decision cannot be understood only as a result of economic factors. Street-selling in Buenos Aires represented, for Assis, not only economic difficulties but also perpetual conflicts. Formal employment in Brazil, on the other hand, promised a constant salary without the permanent fear of getting caught, or offended or being attacked. The case of Assis is only one example of the multinational migrations of Senegalese from Argentina to Brazil. Many of the Senegalese pioneers who arrived in Passo Fundo looking for legal documents and formal employment came from Argentina (Tedesco & Mello, 2015).

In her analysis of how opportunities resulting from a regularisation programme for undocumented migrants in Argentina in 2013 were perceived by Senegalese street-hawkers, Vammen (2017, 49) writes:

The promises of onward migration to Brazil were repeated again and again among street hawkers, building up a collective hope that things might be different in another geographical context. The new document and their expectations of what the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016 could generate in the way of commerce and other possibilities seemed to inspire onward migration.

The movements of Senegalese between the two countries are shaped by real or imagined economic opportunities, immigration legislation – for example the regularisation programmes in Brazil in 2009 and in Argentina in 2013 – and networks of kin and friendship, religious affiliation or ethnicity. While economic growth in Brazil corresponded to the hopes of Senegalese migrants for an easier integration in the formal labour market until 2014/2015, the following economic crisis, which started in 2014 and deteriorated in 2015 and 2016, hampered their success of finding employment. A few of my interviewees lost their jobs during the crisis and started to sell on the streets. The ongoing economic crisis results in new intentions and desires for multinational migration.

8.4.3 The Multinational Migration Intentions of Senegalese in Brazil

Without doubt economic factors play an important role in the development of intentions to leave Brazil and move to another country. Disappointment and disillusion with the economic situation there are widespread among Senegalese migrants (Jung, 2021). Showing his frustration, Moussa, a 27-year-old Senegalese interviewed in Passo Fundo in April 2019 said:

There are some who managed to get a good job. There are some who do very well here. Others do not. (For) others, things are worse. For me, the hope that I had, the things I expected, I have not found here yet. I tried for a while, but if I look at it, if I look well, I think it is a waste of time. Things are not as we wanted them to be.

While some migrants had unrealistic expectations and the idea of Brazil as a new ‘El Dorado’ turned out be an illusion, others had a more accurate image but could not foresee the economic crisis. Still others, who arrived during Brazil’s economic boom and had benefited from the demand for labour, lost their employment or did not see any perspective of staying in Brazil. Demba, a 47-year-old Senegalese with a Brazilian passport, who currently lives with his Brazilian wife in Porto, Portugal, referred, in his interview of June 2019, to the deterioration of the situation in Brazil as his main motive to leave the country after 20 years.

We became interested in Portugal, when the economic problems in Brazil started in 2016 and also because of the violence. […] We saw the country; things were not going well. […] And we started to watch videos on YouTube about Brazilians who went to Portugal and other countries but mainly Portugal. They talked about the differences and the possibilities of emigrating there. What really drew our attention was that I could come here to do a Master’s degree […]. It was one of the legal ways to be able to live here. You are either an entrepreneur or a student. […] Since I had a degree in Brazil which was recognised here, I saw that this was the most appropriate way for me to come here. I would have the possibility of a visa and I was also told that students would have the possibility to work if it does not interfere with the class schedule. So, I saw this opportunity.

In contrast to the cases presented earlier, Demba did not try to gather information through personal contacts but used online channels like YouTube. The use of the internet for information-seeking seems not be widespread among Senegalese migrants in general. Intentions for onward movements from Brazil are often determined by a hierarchy of destination countries, with North America and Europe at the top. Each destination has a different status associated with it. Migration to the USA is regarded as better and more desirable than migration to Brazil which, in the words of some migrants, is almost the same as Senegal. Some migrants even aspire to move despite their economic success in Brazil. This desire results, on the one hand, from questions related to status and, on the other, from migrants imagining that things will be even better in another country, as demonstrated by Assis (Caxias do Sul, April 2019).

Look, nowadays I have grown more. This is important. People say that humans are like this. When you achieve one thing, you are already thinking about another. I am in the store, it is ok, but I’m thinking about something else. I have ideas. Do I travel or not? […] I want to grow more, to travel again. Or sometimes I think that the store will improve to the extent that I will no longer think about leaving here. […] I do not know either, because the biggest concern I have today is my store. If it were not for my store, I would be already out of the country. You see the achievements of other brothers at another place. I do not know if it will be the same for me when I get there. I could get there and realise that it was better here. But we always [think about it]. It is the same thing that we feel when we leave our country. We think that there it will be better than here. […] The plan is to stay here for now. But if I find something better, if I get a visa to go to another country, I will reconsider it. […] If I can get a visa today, in a month I must prepare myself to see how I’m going to get out.

This citation from the interview with Assis, whom we have already met, shows the dynamic nature of migration decisions. The development of intentions and aspirations is no linear process. Assis is happy with his achievements in Brazil but the idea of climbing the destination hierarchy seems never to leave his mind. Like many Senegalese, he is attracted by Anglo-Saxon countries. He has already tried twice to get a visa for the US, once from Senegal and once from Brazil. When I met him in 2018, he was trying to get a tourist visa for Canada but this request was later denied. He told me that if Canada does not work, he will try to go to England. About one year later, he was trying to get a visa for Australia and a private enterprise was taking care of his request. Assis is one of two migrants whom I met in Brazil, who applied several times for a visa for different countries but, until now, were never successful. While this visa lottery could be understood as a strong wish to leave Brazil, Assis’ intentions are dynamic and adapt themselves to the circumstances. Migration is as an active learning process. As we saw above, Assis arrived as a young 20-year-old in South America and, according to him, with absolutely no idea of what to expect. The experience that imagined opportunities can differ from the reality encountered in a country and his knowledge of the difficulties of starting from zero impacted on his approach to further movements – he does not want to take risks.

I only think about leaving for three months. Only three months. After three months, I will come back. Go out to see and come back. [….] I go there just to analyse. I analyse, see how it is there and then I come back here. […] I could imagine something else and (when) I get there, the reality is different. So first I want to keep my store, let someone take care of it. Then I will visit another [country] and see what happens on the other side and if it’s better I’ll come back here and see how I’m going to solve it.

Assis intends to let someone, preferably a relative, look after his store during his time away. This strategy resembles that used by Mamadou for his migration from Cape Verde to Brazil. A temporary movement for exploration purposes as a strategy to minimise the risk of disillusionment and failure was also mentioned by other migrants, especially those who are doing relatively well in Brazil. Migration experiences are a crucial element for this approach. The concern over starting again in a new country and undergoing the same difficulties that they successfully had overcome in Brazil, lead to an attempt to minimise the risks. By contrast, migrants who have nothing to lose or no other obligations in Brazil – for example a family – would often not hesitate to move again to another country. Moussa, who expressed his disappointment with his migratory experience in Brazil, has no doubts and intends to leave Brazil as soon as possible and move to Canada. ‘If I get a visa tomorrow morning, I’m leaving tomorrow’, he told me without showing any fear that migrating to Canada could be unsuccessful as well. However, I recently spoke with MoussaFootnote 5 and his situation in Brazil has completely changed. He has moved from South Brazil to the North and currently lives in Belém in the Amazon Delta. There he once helped a Senegalese woman who travelled to Brazil to buy chili peppers. Through this experience he discovered, almost by coincidence, a new income opportunity and now works as a middleman between Senegalese and Chinese buyers and Brazilian producers. At least for the time being, his intention of onward migration is suspended. This and the other cases show the heterogeneity and fluidity of multinational migration intentions and preparations by Senegalese immigrants in Brazil.

8.5 Conclusion

In one form or another, multinational migration is an integral part of Senegalese migration to Brazil. Onward migration from Cape Verde, the movement across the border from Argentina or the intention to move to an EU country or North America, all demonstrate how Senegalese immigration in Brazil is embedded in wider contexts of (global) mobility. Multinational migrations to Brazil are a central factor in the discovery of Brazil by Senegalese migrants and generally also paved the way for the direct migration from Senegal to Brazil which started later. Self-improvement is the main motive for multinational migration directed to and from Brazil. Here, aspirations with regards to better employment opportunities and higher income are very important. However, self-improvement also refers to personal growth resulting from experiences in a new country or continent and the search for new challenges. While Brazil’s economic growth first attracted Senegalese migrants in Cape Verde and Argentina, the ongoing economic crisis creates intentions to leave Brazil. There is, nevertheless, no clear-cut point in time when movements changed direction. Until now, movements in both directions happened simultaneously. This indicates that each migrant evaluates conditions differently. While some migrants are disappointed with the situation in Brazil, others found better conditions than at their last place of residence. Important for the understanding of multinational migration intentions from Brazil is the different status which is associated with each destination as well as the status that is accorded to migrants themselves for reaching particular destinations (Belloni, 2020). The USA is higher on the destination hierarchy and a Senegalese who managed to go there is regarded differently to one who lives in Brazil.

Aspirations for onward movement are constructed in transnational spaces. Many of the interviewees have relatives and friends in several countries. These kinship or friendship ties connect different places and are a part of those transnational spaces which span more than two countries. While relationships based on kinship or common origin are especially important in the decision to leave Senegal, in the cases presented here, people’s intentions for multinational migration are often embedded in relationships which developed during the migration journey and often include friends and acquaintances of a different nationality. The results show that intentions for onward movements and the strategies to do so are situated in specific localities. The examples of Mamadou – who uses his store in Cape Verde as a safety-net – or of Abdoulaye and how his intention to move to Brazil was constructed in Praia, demonstrate this situatedness. A Senegalese who moved to Cape Verde may have never imagined that, at some point in his life, he would visit Brazil – much less live there. However, the migration to Cape Verde changed the migratory horizon. The spatial and temporal dimensions of the migratory trajectory are open-ended and not fixed. This openness also implies that a migrant may not move at all or may decide to return to his home country or last country of residence. Migration intentions are dynamic. They change over time and adapt to circumstances and the emergence of opportunities. Finally, the study demonstrates how different forms of mobility intersect. Temporary movements either result in intentions for multinational migration or are used for exploration purposes.