Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T13:10:51.970Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - No One Is a Prophet at Home

Mobility and Senses of Place in West Africa

from Part II - Migration, Mobility and Belonging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2021

Christopher M. Raymond
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki, Finland
Lynne C. Manzo
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Seattle
Daniel R. Williams
Affiliation:
USDA Forest Service, Colorado
Andrés Di Masso
Affiliation:
Universitat de Barcelona
Timo von Wirth
Affiliation:
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
Get access

Summary

The specific context of urban migration in West Africa provides a fertile field from which to pluralise currents concepts of sense of place. If research on sense of place is to address the global phenomena of mobility and migration, then this requires an immediate implementation of calls to consider roots and routes and fixity and flow in the production of senses of place. This chapter presents two key findings in relation to West African migrants’ sense of place, both in relation to their place of residence and their place of origin. This first is that new migrants with weak people–place bonds have a heightened quality of life in comparison to locals. This runs counter to assumptions that strong place attachment is beneficial for well-being. The second is that migrants invest considerable efforts into maintaining sense of place in locations where they no longer reside.

Type
Chapter
Information
Changing Senses of Place
Navigating Global Challenges
, pp. 92 - 102
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, J. D. (2013) ‘Theorizing a sense of place in a transnational community’, Children, Youth and Environments, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 4365. http://dx.doi.org/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.23.3.0043Google Scholar
Bakewell, O. (2008) ‘“Keeping them in their place”: the ambivalent relationship between development and migration in Africa’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 7, pp. 13411358. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436590802386492Google Scholar
Bakewell, O. and Jónsson, G. (2013) ‘Theory and the study of migration in Africa’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 477485. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2013.827830CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker, J. E. (1979) ‘Designing for a sense of place in Mississippi small towns’, in Prenshaw, W. P. and McKee, J. O. (eds), Sense of Place: Mississippi, Jackson, University of Mississippi, pp. 162178.Google Scholar
Basso, K. H. (1996) Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Beauchemin, C. and Bocquier, P. (2003) Migration and Urbanization in Francophone West Africa: A Review of the Recent Empirical Evidence, Paris, DIAL/Unité de Recherche CIPRE.Google Scholar
Boccagni, P. (2017) Migration and the Search for Home, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canter, D. (1977) The Psychology of Place, London: Architectural Press.Google Scholar
Ciavolella, R. and Choplin, A. (2018) Cotonou, histoire d’une ville ‘sans histoire’, Cotonou, Fondation Zinsou.Google Scholar
Collyer, M. (2019) ‘From preventive to repressive: the changing use of development and humanitarianism to control migration’, in Mitchell, K., Jones, R., and Fluri, J. L. (eds), Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, pp. 170181.Google Scholar
Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. (2005) ‘Introduction: African urban spaces – history and culture’, in Salm, S. J. and Falola, T. (eds), African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective, Rochester, University of Rochester Press, pp. xv–xi.Google Scholar
Di Masso, A., Williams, D. R., Raymond, C. M., et al. (2019) ‘Between fixities and flows: navigating place attachments in an increasingly mobile world’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 61, pp. 125133. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.01.006Google Scholar
Gaibazzi, P. (2015) Bush Bound: Young Men and Rural Permanence in Migrant West Africa, New York, Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Gustafson, P. (2001) ‘Roots and routes: exploring the relationship between place attachment and mobility’, Environment and Behavior, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 667686. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00139160121973188Google Scholar
Hay, R. (2009) ‘A rooted sense of place in cross-cultural perspective’, Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 245266. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.1998.tb01894.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Institut National de la Statistique et de l’Analyse Economique (INSAE) (2012) Survey on Migrant Transfers conducted under the Ministry of Development, Prospective and Economic Analysis.Google Scholar
Institut National de la Statistique et de l’Analyse Economique (INSAE) (2013) RGPH4 Survey conducted under the Ministry of Development, Prospective and Economic Analysis.Google Scholar
Johnson, C. (1988) ‘A consideration of collective memory in African American attachment to wildland recreation places’, Human Ecology Review, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 515.Google Scholar
Jorgensen, B. S. and Stedman, R. C. (2001) ‘Sense of place as an attitude: lakeshore owners’ attitudes toward their properties’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 233248. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jevp.2001.0226Google Scholar
Juhé-Beaulaton, D. (2009) ‘Un patrimoine urbain méconnu’, Autrepart, vol. 51, no. 3, pp. 7598.Google Scholar
Lalli, M. (1992) ‘Urban-related identity: theory, measurement, and empirical findings’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 285303. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-4944(05)80078–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landau, L. B. and Kihato, C. W. (2018) The Future of Mobility and Migration within and from Sub-Saharan Africa, Brussels, European Strategy and Policy Analysis System.Google Scholar
Lessault, D., Beauchemin, C. and Sakho, P. (2011) ‘Migration internationale et conditions d’habitat des ménages à Dakar’, Population, vol. 66, no. 1, pp. 197228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lopez, S. L. (2015) The Remittance Landscape: Spaces of Migration in Rural Mexico and Urban USA, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Low, S. M. and Altman, I. (1992) ‘Place attachment’, in Altman, I. and Low, S. M. (eds), Place Attachment, Boston, Springer, pp. 112. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8753-4_1Google Scholar
Manzo, L. C. (2003) ‘Beyond house and haven: toward a revisioning of emotional relationships with places’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 4761. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-4944(02)00074–9Google Scholar
Manzo, L. C. (2005) ‘For better or worse: exploring multiple dimensions of place meaning’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 6786. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2005.01.002Google Scholar
Massey, D. (1991) ‘A global sense of place’, Marxism Today, June, pp. 2429.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. and Nuttall, S. (2004) ‘Writing the world from an African metropolis’, Public Culture, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 347372. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/08992363-16-3-347Google Scholar
McEwan, C. (2019) Postcolonialism, Decoloniality and Development, 2nd ed., London, Routledge.Google Scholar
Melly, C. (2016) Bottleneck: Moving, Building and Belonging in an African City, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Myers, G. (2011) African Cities: Alternative Theories and Practices, London, Zed Books.Google Scholar
Najafi, M. and Shariff, M. K. B. M. (2011) ‘The concept of place and sense of place in architectural studies’, International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering, vol. 5, no. 8. http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1082223Google Scholar
Ortega, A. (2016) Neoliberalizing Spaces in the Philippines: Suburbanization, Transnational Migration and Dispossession, Lanham, Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Pellow, D. (2008) Landlords and Lodgers: Socio-Spatial Organization in an Accra Community, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pred, A. (1986) Place, Practice and Structuralism: Social and Spatial Transformation in Southern Sweden 1750–1850, Cambridge, Polity Press.Google Scholar
Relph, E. (1976) Place and Placelessness, London, Pion.Google Scholar
Roy, A. (2011) ‘Conclusion: postcolonial urbanism: speed, hysteria, mass dreams’, in Roy, A. and Ong, A. (eds), Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global, Chichester, Wiley Blackwell, pp. 307335.Google Scholar
Scannell, L. and Gifford, R. (2010) ‘Defining place attachment: a tripartite organizing framework’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.09.006Google Scholar
Schmitz, J. (2008) ‘Migrants ouest-africains vers l’Europe: historicité et espace moraux’, Politique africaine, vol. 109, pp. 515. http://dx.doi.org/10.3917/polaf.109.0005Google Scholar
Shamai, S. (1991) ‘Sense of place: an empirical measurement’, Geoforum, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 347358. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0016–7185(91)90017-KGoogle Scholar
Shamai, S. and Ilatov, Z. (2005) ‘Measuring sense of place: methodological aspects’, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, vol. 96, no. 5, pp. 467476. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9663.2005.00479.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tacoli, C., Satterthwaite, D. and Gordon, M. G. (2015) Urbanization, Rural–Urban Migration and Urban Poverty, Geneva, IOM.Google Scholar
Tall, S. M. (2009) Investir dans la ville africaine: les émigrés et l’habitat à Dakar, hommes et sociétés, Paris, CREPOS.Google Scholar
Taylor, D. E. (1989) ‘Blacks and the environment: toward an explanation of the concern and action gap between blacks and whites’, Environment and Behavior, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 175205. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013916589212003Google Scholar
Tuan, Y.-F. (2011) Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Virden, R. J. and Walker, G. J. (1999) ‘Ethnic/racial and gender variations among meanings given to, and preferences for the natural environment’, Leisure Sciences, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 219239. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/014904099273110Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×