This project is concerned with migrant care networks and reciprocity in ‘transit’. Recent migration-studies scholarship, including ethnographies of mobility in North Africa, highlights both the bioeconomy of present-day ‘transit’ migration and the immaterial affective and intimate economies deployed by migrants in this setting. This project seeks to add to this body of work, including to the conceptualisation of social relations outside the solidarity/exploitation dichotomy. Shifting the attention to the materiality of care, this anthropological study aims to produce new knowledge on care practices in the ‘transit’ context. It also aims to clarify theoretically the relevance (or lack thereof) of the notion of ‘care economies’, as well as the contribution of these practices to the transformation versus reproduction of the bioeconomy of migration. Methodologically, this pilot study will involve the production of a multi-sited ethnography of the care practices deployed by sub-Saharan African migrants in the Maghreb.

TIMELINE
February 2025 – ongoing

Swiss National Science Foundation