Abstract
This article analyses West African maritime routes, specifically from Senegal to the Canary Islands, that emerged as a direct response to the externalization of European borders. West African migrants started to take irregular migration routes to reach Europe when European visa procedures were strengthened in the 1990s. The creation of passages to Europe further adjusted to Europe’s rapidly evolving system of border controls employed to tackle such irregular migration flows. Drawing on field interviews, the article looks both at the motivations and the experiences of Senegalese fishermen who attempted to reach Europe by sea, through an increasingly borderized ocean space. This case study explores the mobility of those fishermen who became would-be migrants and actively participated in irregular sea migration from Senegal to Europe mainly from 2000 to 2008. Fishermen’s experiences reflect a complex EurAfrican reality of border making and migration management. Through these experiences, we first learn that the fishermen responded to an opportunity of migration to Europe as much as to a deep-seated crisis of the fishing sector. The article then shows that fishermen’s mobility can be seen as a way of regaining sovereignty over spaces (the sea) and livelihoods from which they have been excluded.
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Notes
- 1.
Qualitative interviews were carried out in Senegal (Dakar, Saint-Louis and Kayar) in 2007, 2011 and 2012 with fishermen who either illegally reached Europe via the Canary Islands and had been repatriated to Senegal or attempted to make the journey but turned back to Senegal because of the unfavourable weather conditions or because they got arrested in high sea.
- 2.
Demersal species are found in deep waters. One of the most common in Senegal is the grouper (thiof in Wolof or merou in French) and is now facing extinction. Its scarce catches are more and more destined for export as local communities cannot afford to buy it, although it used to be a central element of Senegalese everyday food habits.
- 3.
The world average is around 17 kg.
- 4.
And field notes, Dakar, 2011 and 2012.
- 5.
Especially for the peasants coming from internal areas in Senegal and fleeing the drought (Nguyen-Van-Chi-Bonnardel 1969).
- 6.
All the names have been changed to maintain the anonymity.
- 7.
Field interview, Dakar, March 2012.
- 8.
2011 and 2012
- 9.
Field interview, Kayar, June 2011.
- 10.
Field Interview, Dakar, 2007.
- 11.
Field Interview, Kayar, 2012.
- 12.
Field Interviews, Dakar, 2007.
- 13.
Field interview with Mamadou, Yoff, Dakar, June 2007.
- 14.
Field interviews, with returned migrants in Yoff, Dakar, 2007.
- 15.
Field interview with Abdoulaye, Kayar, June 2011
- 16.
Field interview with Abdoulaye, Kayar, June 2011.
- 17.
Field interview with Moussa, Kayar, June 2011
- 18.
Field interview with Moussa, Kayar, June 2011
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Hallaire, J. (2017). Maritime Migration from Senegal to Spain: Fishermen’s Experiences. In: Gaibazzi, P., Dünnwald, S., Bellagamba, A. (eds) EurAfrican Borders and Migration Management. Palgrave Series in African Borderlands Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94972-4_10
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