Abdoulaye Kane

Malian and Burkinabe migrants to the cocoa plantations in Côte d’Ivoire

Postcolonial migrations have been overwhelmingly oriented toward urban centers. Rural exodus is a common denominator in the way African capital cities grew rapidly during the three decades following African independences

After European integration, what matters most is simply entering “fortress Europe” (Koser 2003)

domestic and regional African migration continues to be far more important and sizable than the flows to Europe, America, and the Gulf region combined (Sander and Maimbo 2003; Bakewell and de Haas 2007).

The vast majority of African migrants live close to their communities of origin—in national capital cities or in neighboring countries (Zeleza 2002)

In communities with a long history of migration, we can observe what Durand and Massey (1992) call the “cumulative effect of migration.” In such cases, people incorporate migration into their culture and expectations of movement, thereby influencing how people envision their lives, entertain their hopes, and realize their dreams. The growing literature on “cultures of migration” focuses on these aspects of community that are rapidly becoming prevalent all across the continent (Cohen 2004; Hahn and Klute 2007)

Of course, his chosen immigration would allow Europe to attract the best and the brightest from poorer countries, while preventing an imposed immigration requires tight border control to keep out unskilled and clandestine candidates

Thus it is in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, and Senegal that the first layers of European border control emerge in an attempt to prevent clandestine migrants from even leaving the country

Immigration policies in Europe that emphasize border control put the lives of unskilled migrants in peril. Europe has constructed higher fences—both physical and bureaucratic—with serious consequences for the human rights of clandestine migrants

The “chosen migration” of Sarkozy remains morally questionable as it contributes to the structural reproduction of global inequalities wherein the best human resources of poor countries are absorbed outward while the unskilled multitudes are prevented from taking up mobility-dependent opportunities