Migchoice country report: Senegal

Senegal was built through migration. Today the country is home to a large diaspora active throughout the world. However, it is mainly internal migrants who fuel the vitality of trade and economic activities in the country and the sub-region. It is therefore necessary to recognise the great diversity of migratory profiles that contribute to the shaping of a constant geographical and social mobility from below. The geopolitical, economic and social integration of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) remains an open project. Here, public policies are trying to promote the free movement of goods and people through investments in infrastructure. On the other hand, European Union (EU) migration policies in recent years have radically restricted the freedom of intercontinental and trans-Saharan movement. This transformation has imposed new mobility regimes that have had a profound impact on both migratory trajectories and forms of voluntary and involuntary immobility.At the local level, the impact of interventions in terms of development and migration depends on a multitude of local and international actors, micro-projects and public-private partnerships, as well as on the presence of more or less dense migration networks. All these factors work, within different contexts, to form trajectories of mobility and immobility. The diversity of migratory practices, the configuration of local development and the specificity of socio-economic contexts are therefore the three dimensions around which this study is structured. Yet, a fourth dimension is taken into account. We intend to interrogate migration from the point of view of the decision-making processes to migrate or to stay. This implies an approach focused on social actors and the way they construct and represent their trajectories of mobility or immobility.