Visa problem: certification, kinship, and the production of ‘ineligibility’ in the Gambia

Abstract

The article describes the documentary vicissitudes of young Gambian men of Soninke ethnicity. Normally the most mobile subjects in a milieu where international migration is central to subsistence and prosperity, these young men often fail to secure entry visas to the West and other desirable destinations owing to restrictive admission policies. Would‐be travellers cope with high rejection rates, but also struggle to secure financial and logistical support from relatives in order to meet the demanding requirements of visa applications. Since kinship mediates access to travel documents, the article suggests that visa ineligibility is a product of both state‐based and societal practices of certification. It shows how the visa regime plays into the kinship reciprocities and affects that produce, discipline, and select prospective migrants, thereby transferring and concealing the arbitrariness and uncertainty of legal‐political structures of mobility.

Moving on

“…As noted earlier, this body of work has focused on the experiences of those who remain in a locality from which there is a large amount of migration (Gaibazzi 2014;Gardner 1993;Gardner 2008;Vigh 2009). In relation to this, drawing on Bourdieu, Vertovec (2004) has coined the phrase "transnational habitus" to describe the extent to which transnationalism structures the experience, dispositions and practices of even those who never migrate.…”

“…The disappointment of those who aspire to migrate but ultimately never leave their homelands has been extensively discussed in anthropological literature on migration (Carling 2002;Gaibazzi 2014;Jansen 2009;Vigh 2009). Examining migrant experiences in Italy, in this article I place the focus on those who have migrated but who still feel as though they have failed due to their lack of onward mobility.…”

“…Studies conducted in places with high levels of emigration show that understandings and imaginations of "home" and "away" are structured by unequal global power relationships in which material success and personal development are only thought to be achievable through migration (Bal 2013;Gaibazzi 2014;Gardner 1993;Gardner 2008;Vigh 2009). Focusing on the continued feelings of disappointment and personal failure experienced by those who have already migrated highlights how "hierarchies of globalisation" (Carling 2002: 37) mean that while most are incorporated into a globalizing world market, not everybody is able to benefit from it (Bal & Roos Willems 2014: 255).…”

Why Do We Need Misanthropology in Anthropology? An Exploratory Essay in Deliberating the Research Subfield

“…Take for example various obstacles put before an ordinary citizen by bureaucracy in demanding something which is guaranteed by law to him/her; or the requirements by all of the governments in the world concerning the rights of people designated as "foreign citizens" simple to be at the territory those governments are in charged for; or the category of "migrant workers" which mostly embraces people denied access to any legal job in the country they have migrated to; or troubles refugees, asylum seekers, and homeless people are faced with when they need healthcare services, etc (Cf. Gaibazzi 2014, Quesada et al 2011, Marrow and Luhrmann 2012, Kelly 2012.…”

Marriage at the Embassy: Securing the EurAfrican Border in Cameroon

“…Most irregular migration, however, occurs through legal border crossings. Borders operate through capillary power dynamics (Walters 2006) and the effects of border regimes are thus tangible to populations with mobile ambitions far beyond the physical manifestation of border posts and border guards (Gaibazzi, 2014). Embassies and visa procedures have become ever more important sites for the securing of the Euro-African border (see Zampagni, this volume).…”