Last, I was in Sabha. It was the worst and most dangerous of the prisons. There were hundreds there. There was almost no food. Every morning, one loaf of bread for 6–8 persons, no tap water, no clothes. Nothing else. Telephones, everything had been taken from us. And every morning the Libyans came in and beat us. Just like this…. There was no communication between the Arabs and the Blacks. Like animals. That's also what they called us. Between ourselves, the black among "us," there were no problems. Everyone was afraid. That was just the feeling against the Libyans. And there were little bugs everywhere, which bit: in the clothes, which were so dirty because of the salt, in the bed sheets, which were on the mattresses, where we lay. Many people died there. Only someone who had a mobile phone number in his head could call to get help, to get someone to send money to buy something at the small kiosk: drinks, small things, cigarettes. You did not really know what was going on, how long you had to stay in there. Then, the transfer from one to the next prison. Just like that. Without notice. We were packed into a truck – like a black barrel, you did not see anything – and transported somewhere else. Then all you saw was prison again. (Salif, 11-29-2015)

Salif 's references were very graphic, literally evoking the physical abuse they underwent. He touched his body, lowered his head, sighed and stared at me alternately while speaking, underlining this horrendous depiction. In the end, he was repatriated with 150 other Malians by airplane. Still, he spoke about his returning with "empty hands" as the central impression of his return, the symbolic meaning of which I will explore further in the next chapter:

It is disturbing, because when you leave, it was the joy, and upon return it's a shame (*honte*) because you return with empty hands, as if one entered Bamako without clothes or shoes. In the prison you do not wear any shoes or anything and they deport you like that. (Salif, 11-1-2015)

Besides having lost money and suffered from emotional and physical destitution, Salif describes himself as debased as it is possible to be. He had to arrive without clothes, dishonored, stripped of human dignity by this anarchic administrative treatment. These deportees seem literally to be reduced to "bare life" (Agamben, 1998) and "naked" (Arendt, [1943] 2018). Many, particularly those who left during the Libyan civil war, arrived wounded, shot, with broken arms, or sick. In such cases, recovery after deportation is not only emotional and moral in nature, but may require weeks or months of medical treatment, causing additional insecurity and trouble for the family and sometimes the payment of large sums of money. Some returnees remain physically impaired. This is particularly visible in some villages where the majority of the men, young and old, returned from Libya (before, during, or after the civil war in 2011). One former deportee could not use his hand for more than a year before being able to help again on the family farm. Another still had a bullet in his back when we met in 2016. It restricted his ability to engage in heavy physical work. His family was unable to pay for the required surgery. All these injuries became bodily inscribed memories of migratory control and war. We can speak too of the "language of the body" (cf. Sayad, 2004, pp. 210ff). The body speaks and remembers. It puts experiences of continued social, physical, and emotional suffering and destitution on display.

Among the Malian population, these violent practices and the large numbers of deportees from Libya were met with widespread irritation and anger, even riots from the 2000s on when Libyan deportations increased (see Sylla, 2019, 2014): "The people were upset that this could happen and compatriots were treated like this," Salif said. This needs to be considered against the background of previous close Libyan–Malian (migration) relations and guest worker agreements as described above. It constitutes a collective, though desperate, agentive act against the constraints caused by deportations.

#### **Within the externalized transit corridor**

Many deportees never get beyond the vast transit corridor through North Africa to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, fragmented and shaped by the EU's externalized borders. The accounts of their turbulent journeys – journeys that in many cases are reversed – express a spectrum of aspects and forms of suffering. The trajectories of many are arbitrarily shaped; they pass through long phases of waiting, standstill, and mobility in many countries, undergoing multiple deportations and re-emigrations. At the same time, this is what people describe as being captured by the notion of the migratory adventure.

#### "Having something in the head." – Stress, violence, and pain after deportations

As recounted in the previous chapter, one of the most striking impressions from the beginning of my field work was of a certain restlessness I encountered in deportees, generally shortly after their deportation (though sometimes even many years after). These people seemed anxious, delusional, and urgently searching for something in a rather desperate state of "stress, between hyper mobility and waiting" as Streiff-Fénart and Poutignat (2006, p. 137) aptly describe situations of transit – a mixture of pressure, bewilderment, resignation, commitment, conviction, consciousness of any horrors one may have seen and expectations that remain unfulfilled. Either directly after being deported or in retrospective narration, such "insanity" became visible as embodied memory, when former deportees like Salif stopped talking, and stared into space in the middle of a conversation, or touched their heads. "There is something in my head"; I heard that said many times – for instance, by Madou, who left for Mauritania from his village near Kita, describing his feelings after his ship was wrecked crossing the Atlantic: "At that moment, the idea of a journey had taken over my mind. Either, I went on an adventure or I would die, because there is so much poverty in Mali." Flown back to Bamako, he re-emigrated directly from his uncle's house with some money he had received from his brother. He did not care that the uncle was against it. The mission had to be accomplished, and he did not see any immediate alternative to doing just that.

Souleymane very much embodied a combination of recklessness and seriousness that might be called quite "adventurous." He was deported, sent back, stuck on the way, imprisoned, then re-emigrated many times on literally "fragmented journeys" (Collyer, 2007), "turbulent trajectories" (Schapendonk, 2012) and "fragmented stays" (Stock, 2019) between Mali, the Maghreb states, and Spain. With €50 received from the Spanish authorities on one deportation, Souleymane immediately made his way north again, leaving from Bamako airport in the direction of Libya. Like Madou, describing his restless commitment, he recalled: "It was not my idea to return home at this stage …. I wanted to go to Europe to make a living there!"

One of the ARACEM workers said: "The migrants are people that I don't know how to describe, how to characterize them, it's a bit like they tell me their … part of their way, some of their way, then it stops there, and from there they don't tell you anything else" (field notes, 11-7-2014). Among all the sub-Saharan Africans passing through the organization, there are many Malians as well. They may return to their villages, but they may instead go on right away. For many deportees in Mali and elsewhere, deportation is just a moment of transit, a rupture, and a stage in a (new) migration cycle (cf. Kleist, 2017a; Cassarino, 2014; see Chapter 1). Many say their first thought is to leave again directly, being unwilling to confront the people who are socially close to them. Others prefer to remain in transit, at the border or in a town on the way, such as Gao, Agadez, or Tamanrasset.6 Lucht (2017) depicts deportees stranded in Niger as preferring to die rather than return empty-handed

6 For literature on this historical transit space, see, e.g., Brachet, 2018; Lecadet, 2013; McDougall & Scheele, 2012; Boesen & Marfaing, 2006.

and face potential social death. He frames it as an "eternal existential unrest" in the "human struggle that migration represents in the globalized world" (p. 155). Hence, as long as the adventurers keep going and try to make it, they see value in their lives for they can still achieve something better for themselves and their kin.7 According to one of the AME staff, "if the people find something to do, they will stay; but if not, the deportee always wants to re-emigrate. That's the big problem."

Staring eyes and nervousness may accompany accounts of deportation experiences many years later. The post-deportation condition may be prolonged for individuals, their social circles, and entire communities. Not everything can be expressed in words (cf. Vium, 2014). To cite Michael Jackson (2005a, p. 152), "it may be more realistic to admit that suffering brings us to the limits of language." Particularly, the experiences of violence and hardship before, during, and after migratory adventures may become more graspable through gestures, sighs, and silences. From the perspective of trauma theory, silence is fundamentally important to enable the sufferer to recover again as a self. Afflicted by "deeply painful memories" (Eastmond & Mannergren Selimovic, 2012, p. 524), the shattered self needs to place the cover of silence over the painful and shameful past, all the humiliations experienced and difficulties seen. Hardships and violence obviously do not start with deportations **?**; the journey itself is often depicted as an encounter with tremendous suffering, physical distress, and death, the opposite pole to learning, getting to know the world, and eventually becoming "a man."8 All this is substantially shaped by administrative control through visa regulations, illegalization, detention practices, and the use of force.

"Having something in one's head" is thus like an emblematic winged word, recognizable among those who have experienced deportations and those who know such people and work with them. There is a specific "air" particularly around those who have just returned. Some take increased migratory controls and violations as reason enough to stay after their return, sometimes ending up in social isolation and precarity in the anonymity of the city, as I will shortly revisit. Through these violent, physical, and emotional interventions, deportations change people. Some report having been literally driven crazy. Such insanity may entail a split in personality that cannot be recovered from. But, despite all the different stories, there are patterns in the aspects of suffering, embodied and memorized, that characterize those who have come back.

7 Bredeloup depicts shame as "an extremely effective emotion driving migrants to take enormous risks, to cross deserts and the sea, to push their boundaries beyond previous limits in order to avoid social death" (2017, p. 145). These interrelations will be further explored in Chapters 5 and 6.

8 The latter will be particularly explored in Chapter 6.

#### Shock, alienation, and the luck of survival

Deportees' narratives explicitly describe it as a shock, when they are deported – the kind of shock and experience of violence that may eventually bring them to a halt, even if many continue oscillating in their minds between returning and leaving again, potentially alienated and estranged from their social circle, at least at first. In view of the manifold processes of violation and humiliation that may accompany situations during or after deportation, the grades of alienation from society experienced may differ widely.

Brahima, whom I met in the Bamako market place when buying credit for my mobile phone and described in the previous chapter, was only 18 when he was deported from Tenerife in the Canary Islands after only "40 days." "Honestly, the fact that I was deported shocked me very much. I did not imagine that somebody could deport me!" (Brahima, 12-5-2014). Deportation came unexpectedly, and as an instance of unjust administrative treatment with severe economic as well as social repercussions. All his money, he said, was "wasted [*gaspillé*]. This discouraged me a lot."

Since his parents sent him to Bamako to earn money at the age of ten, Brahima had spent many years saving for the journey by sewing shoes and doing other jobs. As one of a group of youngsters, he took a bus to Mauritania. By bush taxi and boat, after several stopovers, a lot of negotiation, intermediaries, hazards, and exhaustion, the group headed for the Canary Islands. Brahima recalled the voyage, which took an entire week to cross the 200 km strait9 : "During this week, honestly, we were very exhausted." "You've endured some suffering!," Birama, my coresearcher, exclaimed. "Too much," said Brahima with conviction, "I do not want to live through that again. Really!" The 70 passengers arrived alive, but several were sick when they reached Tenerife. Having just escaped death at sea, they were immediately arrested, held for three days at a *Guardia Civil*10 police station, then detained for another 40 days in a reception and deportation center. While some were allowed to continue "to Madrid or even Malaga," others had to return. He did not have family members in Europe to be "reunited with."11 A charter flight brought

9 From Tripoli, Libya, to Sicily, Italy, is about double the distance.

10 The Guardia Civil is the oldest law enforcement entity in Spain organized as a military force charged with police duties under the authority of the Ministries of the Interior and of Defense. In collaboration with FRONTEX, the Guardia Civil is charged with the protection and security of the external Spanish and EU borders.

11 Family reunification is one of the major reasons for immigration to the EU and also a widespread migratory strategy, particularly for minors. It is one of the few and most frequently used legal pathways possible, besides seeking asylum, notably for persons from the African continent; see online: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/le gal-migration/family-reunification\_en, accessed 31 October 2021.

them back to Bamako airport. He called his family upon arrival: "They were not happy at all. They cried on the telephone" (Brahima, 12-5-2014). While others, like Souleymane or Madou, hid away or left again the next day, Brahima could be seen as courageous in reporting his supposed migratory "failure" (cf. also Bredeloup, 2017, p. 147). But he was deeply demoralized: his objective had not been attained.

Souleymane's "hyper mobility" (Streiff-Fénart & Poutignat, 2006, p. 137), traveling back and forth and waiting in the vast externalized European border space, as described above, was eventually stopped by another deportation. He worked in Libya on a construction site where he was detected during a raid, detained in dire conditions and deported to Mali. This time, he decided to stay there. He described his appearance upon return: "Everything was flapping around. I was barely recognizable." And he had been "SUFFERING!" in the prison, he exclaimed. He returned, with the help of a patron, partly on his own resources, through the Sahara, southern Libya, Niger, and Gao to Bamako. He remained in the capital afterwards, refusing to return to his village close to Kita. Through the network of the same patron, he soon found a job as a security guard, a relatively recognized and safe occupation. His turbulent journey was interrupted and, at least for a time, stopped. The memories of the suffering remained, however, or became revitalized by our conversation.

After arrival, Malian deportees, in most cases that we found, sought shelter with a relative in the capital or in a bigger city to take a first breath before either continuing to their family's village or making a new attempt. Brahima used the €50 from the Spanish authorities, which Souleymane took to leave again immediately – "it was the European Union who financed this" – to pay for some food and water. But he spent an "uneasy time," as all his money was *gaspillé*. Moreover, he was met with general mistrust: "The people are afraid of deportees"; "they don't know you at all." He appeared like a stranger, alien to them. Upon arrival, deportees often need to become recognizable. They may look different. Academic literature speaks of deportees as "estranged," a "deportspora" (Nyers, 2003)12, "unclassifiable" (Douglas, 1966), and "ghostlike" (cf. Coutin, 2013); in extreme cases they may behave like the returning son described in Kafka's "Homecoming," mentioned in Chapter 1, who shies away to verify his estrangement, the alienation he feels. (Long) periods of absence, the world abroad, potentially hazardous and violent experiences and treatment shatter, impact, and can alienate returnees from those who stayed. In addition, they may be suspected of wrongdoing. While the previous practice of detaining deportees in Bamako after arrival based on accusations of illegal migration (see Chapter 2), may have encouraged people to consider deportees as criminals, the AME's and others' activities opposing this practice and its abolition after 1997 have substantially changed the public discourse in this respect, even though deportees

12 According to Nyers(2003, p. 1070) a"deportspora" is an"abject diaspora,""oscillating between re-departure and re-deportation," in a "global circuit of deportation" (Khosravi, 2016, p. 178).

may still be received ambivalently. In other countries similar detention practices continue today (cf., e.g., Alpes, 2018). Deportation literature in this regard speaks of multiple forms of "punishment" (Bosworth et al., 2016) – the administrative act of deportation and a potential stigmatization and exclusion afterwards – or "double abandonment" (Lecadet, 2013), as deportees may be "expelled from one country and outcast in another" (Khosravi, 2018, p. 2). In cases of (post) deportation affecting mostly Latin Americans from the United States, stigmatization and potential exclusion mechanisms take an even more extreme form. There it is not the country of reception that criminalizes the deportees, but the country that deports them. In the US, migrants without papers from countries such as El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, or Cape Verde in particular have been often convicted for, mostly minor, criminal offences, and subsequently deported (e.g., Radziwinowiczówna, 2019; Golash-Boza, 2015; Coutin, 2013, 2004; Drotbohm, 2012; Nyberg-Soerensen, 2010; Brotherton & Barrios, 2009; Peutz, 2007; Zilberg, 2004). The stigma of being criminal may be reactivated, (re)produced and deeply inscribed after arrival and often over time (e.g., Golash-Boza & Navarro, 2020). Eventually, this underlines a specific symbolism with respect to the deporting country, which I will briefly detail further.

Brahima's experience of alienation was increased by the fact that he was "the only one to remain." Many of his traveling companions left again during the following months. Their parents paid. Brahima stayed behind with his uncle in Bamako, unwilling to go to his village.The different economic and social backgrounds, financial resources, and the influence of their family networks divided the young men on arrival in Tenerife and after their deportation back to Bamako; their trajectories were deeply shaped by these differences, which offered them unequal chances. What started as a – as I term it – "collectivity of travel," enduring the hazards of the adventure together, was lost at that moment. Belonging to a group of adventurers is a centrally important reference in the accounts of former deportees, enabling survival and keeping them grounded. Souleymane smiled somehow proudly, when he reported: "We've done Libya together." These are emblematic expressions acknowledging memories of joint journeys and belonging. Brahima felt alone, once back. Detached from his collectivity of travel, he was particularly alienated, "estranged," and moreover economically deprived through his deportation.

In this way, deportations often constitute a literal existential rupture in a migrant's life and his social lifeworld in multiple respects and at multiple scales. Many deportees are "thrown" into the situation post deportation, involuntarily, without the envisaged objective having been attained, thus completely unprepared (cf. Cassarino, 2004) to face their socially nearest whose expectations are unfulfilled. From the perspective of existential philosophy, this corresponds to the initial position of any human being: "we find ourselves thrown into the midst of a world where things often seem strange or confusing, and where we need to get a handle on what is going on around us, if we are to be able to function" (Guignon & Pereboom, 2001, p. 184; cf. Kleinhans, 2007, pp. 11f). In a similar sense, the deportee can be seen as being existentially and involuntarily forced into making sense of this situation, despite all the irritation, violence, and constraints he or she has lived through. Like, to use another literary reference, Samuel Beckett's "L'expulsé/The Expelled" (1984), who is unexpectedly thrown out of his house into an unknown street in an unknown town, Brahima was existentially thrown into a space of "cultural in-betweenness" (Collinge-Germain, 2009), even though he knew the society he was thrown back into. Others were able to make it, but, for him, there was a dichotomy between the in- and the outside, rather in the sense of the stranger described by Alfred Schütz (1944, p. 502), who has to reorient from his "relatively natural conception of the world."13 Left to his own devices, he needs to recover and overcome humiliations in order to be accepted again and eventually "reinitiated."14 Such experiences of alienation and estrangement are specific forms of suffering brought about by the ruptures of deportation, which one has to cope with.

Even though, it appears, risk, death, and deportations may not deter people from re-emigrating, as the cases of Madou and Souleymane show (cf. also Alpes, 2017; Dougnon, 2012; Hernández-Carretero & Carling, 2012), others prefer to stay, even if in the capital, sometimes after several attempted crossings. Abdoul, for instance, was quite outspoken about the hazards of the trip. He was repelled by the clandestine journey and his deportation from France. It was not only the violent administrative treatment but the physical and psychological distress that terrified him and convinced him to stay, refusing to live in constant fear again. He provided an emotional plea for staying:

I've seen people that just died like that. Often I see their images when I sit like this. Yeah. That's quite sad. But I, I don't wish anybody to do adventures like this. Even if you gain a 100.000, here you can do something. You can do a little business, and if God wills you can make it, you can go [*incomprehensible*]. Just stay at home. That's better! That's why I prefer never to go on an adventure again. (Abdoul, 11-21-2014)

13 Schütz follows the idea of Max Scheler's"relativ natürlicheWeltanschauung"(1926; cf. Schütz, 1944, p. 502).

14 "Reinitiation" links in the concept of the migratory adventure as a *rite de passage* building on former rituals of initiation: the returnee needs to be reinitiated and re-incorporated into the community. Victor Turner (1969) built his theory of "*rite de passage*" on Van Gennep's ([1909] 1981) three phases: separation, liminality, and incorporation. Accordingly, "liminae personae are no longer/not yet […] neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention" from a marginal position in society (Turner, 1969, p. 95). Rather than a phase of transition, Khosravi (2018) sees liminality as a being stuck in the case of deportees (2018, pp. 7f). In line with my argumentation, I would dispute this point as a "failed" migratory adventure might function as transition and transformation too. This will be discussed in the following chapters.

Abdoul even considered himself lucky: "The adventure is over. I've had luck. All my friends with whom I went away, they are all dead" (ibid.). Such existential memories were present in all his accounts. He had been interviewed for an anti-migration awareness-raising campaign for the youth on television, as he mentioned by the way. This presentation may have had a substantial influence on the way he presented himself in our interview. Most importantly, though, Abdoul had survived, which gave him strength, enabling him to go on. But he still has difficulties getting through. Due to the Malian crisis, he cannot work at his job as tourist guide anymore as the country gets barely any tourists. He occasionally works as a guide for the UN mission or sells wooden Dogon statues at his cousin's boutique.

Even though some hesitate and stay away, many former deportees eventually do return to their villages (often in the absence of any alternative). This has been increasingly the case in recent years. Others, such as Souleymane, Brahima, and Abdoul, prefer the geographical distance, anonymity, and potential autonomy of a bigger city. Often people continue to oscillate, torn between leaving and staying in light of their supposed "failed" adventures, representing the dilemma of migratory cultures in a world of constrained mobilities. This is how the young men agentically go about dealing with being thrown in. A similarly restless continuance has been described with regard to many young men in Africa more generally in light of the overall crisis: a lack of prospects, coupled with the pressure to do something, become someone, and take care of things (cf., e.g., Weiss, 2004). I will say more about these everyday patterns of being thrown in and going on in the chapters that follow.

#### **"Legal violence" in European deportation regimes**

Deportations from Europe seem to constitute a very particular case, causing severe social suffering, principally in the form of incomprehension, loss of control, and anger. This could be called legally produced violence, the term that Menjívar and Abrego (2012, p. 1380) used to capture the "normalized but cumulatively injurious effects of the [immigration and criminal] law" as experienced by migrants with precarious legal status.15

Lamine, whom I met for the first time two days after his deportation from France in the rooms of the AME, appeared clearly disoriented and lost (see Chapter 3); speaking as if hunted, fast and nervously in excellent French, searching for help and repeating "I don't know what's going on" ("*Je ne suis pas au courant"*) – apparently unable to grasp what had hit him. In fact, the entire process of his re-

15 Coutin (2013, p. 334) applies the concept to the case of deportations, which reproduce the "legal violence" of emigration "generationally."

turn appears to have been deeply unfortunate, frustrating, and disturbing: he had been picked up by a street control in France, detained ("*c'était dur, c'ètait dur là-bas, franchement"*) and deported despite the Malian embassy's refusal of consent, and the support of a lawyer, an NGO in France, and many friends of the family.16 He was returned without any official order – just "something that the police had written." The Malian officials at the airport were irritated; so were the representatives of the AME, which was where they sent him. Lamine had been about to sign a contract for an apprenticeship, which would have eventually regularized his status. His entire family was in France. After all that, the "unjust" deportation appeared to him to be "incomprehensible" and "bizarre." He described his deportation flight, during which he barely talked to the police officers:

At Charles de Gaulle airport already they put me in handcuffs and I said "I am not a criminal!" I said, Susanne, "I am not a criminal... I never hit anybody I never stole, I just don't have an identity card … I am not a criminal … You don't have the right to keep me like this." He said, "But we are obliged to, we don't have any choice, we are obliged." (Lamine, 10-14-2014)

The deportation regime became materialized in the handcuffs he was forced to wear, his being treated like a criminal. Lamine vehemently protested against this condemnation, affirming his innocence to me, as if I might have considered him a criminal, too; obviously feeling the need to demonstrate this confirmation in our interaction. Others in the detention center in France had committed "real crimes" and were released. Face to face with the policemen, he claimed the justice that was due to him. They did not have the right to put him in handcuffs and treat him like this. But when the policemen alluded to a higher state authority that obliged them to carry out the deportation: "Well ok, it's not a problem," he eventually said resignedly. "It's for that reason that I was not happy" (Lamine, 11-3-2014).

Lamine's approach provides an example of what deportees report as blatant legal injustices in deportations – from European countries in particular, as people expect to be treated more justly there. Anger, anxiety, and outrage resurface when the events are recounted. The legal processes may not have been fully understood, or people may not have been informed about them. This lack of knowledge creates additional anxiety and sometimes deep uncertainty (cf. Hasselberg, 2016; Coutin,

16 The refusal of the Malian embassy in such cases needs to be seen as collaboration with the potential deportee, and the Malian diaspora more broadly, in order to prevent his deportation, in contrast to the phenomenon that has been discussed as "estranged citizenship" referring to a "disrecognition" of deportees' citizenship (cf., e.g., Khosravi, 2018, p. 2f).

2015; Boehm, 2009).17 These too are forms of the social suffering caused by deportation presented in deportees' narrative accounts.

The violent destruction of deportees' individual and social lives through the bureaucratic execution and standard administrative routine of the act of deportation might, moreover, be covered by Hannah Arendt's concept of the "banality of the evil" (1963), which Nicholas De Genova aptly applies to challenge "such otherwise routine 'administrative' punishments." Individuals are dehumanized and reduced to "functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery" (De Genova, 2018, p. 255).18

In the end, however, instead of opposing the perceived injustice he suffered at the hands of the police, Lamine sees himself forced to back down, eventually consenting to the exercise of force. He is "not happy," and in saying so sounds quite reserved in the way he characterizes his reaction to this violent act. Though he refused to collaborate in his return at first, he eventually gave in to avoid being imprisoned and banned from French national territory for years.19 Yet, after all that, he was so full of anger and hatred that he thought of murdering a person just because they were French.

I was hogtied all the time … Yes, all the time hogtied … My hands were tied like this, and even my feet ... This was … hard, you know …  That's it. (Lamine, 10-14-2014)

This expression of hatred was in other respects a deeply agentic act, one might say, produced by and in reaction to the post-colonial deportation regime (cf. De Genova, 2018, p. 256): an instance not of giving in, but of existentially protesting.

#### **Accounts of trauma and self-organized groups as intermediaries**

Within this setting, talking about trauma time and again plays an ascriptive role as well as a narrative one. The self-organized groups of former deportees, such as the AME, ARACEM and others, serve as intermediaries between the structures that produce violence and suffering and those who experience and narrate deportations.

17 I will explore the concept of uncertainty after deportations more generally in relation to future-making in Chapter 7.

18 "As well as the reduction of others into the mere objects of its power – that Arendt deemed to be not only 'the essence of totalitarian government' but also, remarkably, 'perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy' (Arendt [1963] 2006)" (cf. Genova, 2018, p. 289; cf. idem, 2014).

19 European countries usually issue a re-entry ban, denying return to the country after a deportation: https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F2782, accessed 31 October 2021. In France this period is usually three years after a deportation, while the UK requires up to ten years. This does not necessarily stop people from re-emigrating as this book underlines.

Being themselves products of existing deportation regimes, the organizations have developed an approach and procedure to ease the hardships and suffering experienced, and to facilitate arrivals post deportation. Dave, the worker with another assistance organization whose deportation experiences I reported on earlier, described the situation:

At such a moment, I have to go quickly to see him [the returnee I am dealing with] so that he can wash himself and eat under good conditions to regain confidence. Otherwise, the next day you cannot tell him anything. All of this is done so that he can forget the suffering he has experienced on the road. (Dave, 10-21-2014)

The AME has two rooms to receive deportees, which were used increasingly often from 2015 on after the silence and emptiness caused by the Malian crisis at first. It provides a space of orientation.20 Its representatives' own deportation experiences help build connections. "Even if one has no money, one can help them morally" (Dave, 21-10-2014). Some of the professional migrants maintain a certain distance from the deportees they care for, adopting a rather paternalistic approach. This may be necessary to enable them to do their job in the first place:

Sometimes I call this a trauma; because they come traumatized because of all that they have lived through on the road. That's why we have to leave them time when they arrive before we welcome them. There are some who come without clothes and for these it is necessary to find clean clothes, to set them up and to give them something to drink and to eat. People are DIRTY! That's it… (Dave, 10-21-2014)

"Traumatism" is not a term one would necessarily hear from the *refoulés* themselves – only if they consciously aim at placing themselves in a political context. It is a common marker and ascription in organizational speech, not least because some organizations have received funding for deportees' psychological counselling.21 The number of such programs has increased through the renewed assistance approach financed by the more "humanizing" EUTF for Africa, described in Chapter 2.

Abdoulaye was one of the few cases to receive psychological treatment within a limited program run by the AME. He had been living in Paris for two years, in uncertain conditions of "migrant illegality and deportability" (De Genova, 2002), without papers doing "undignified" little jobs in a restaurant. One day, he had a motorcycle accident. Whiplashed, he needed medical treatment, and his arm was

20 According to AME, ARACEM and other organizations, three days is the length of time recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for those in mental distress to recover after a traumatic situation of shock and disorientation.

21 There is a large body of literature on trauma and post-traumatic stress syndrome in relation to flight, migration, and beyond, which needs to be discussed elsewhere. For some groundwork literature see, e.g., Fassin & Rechtman, 2009.

badly injured. He received a three-month residence card, but his request for an extension was denied, although the treatment needed to continue. One day, a police control did not release him, as it had repeatedly done before: he was detained and deported to Bamako immediately. Apparently, he was lucky: the AME received him at Bamako airport. The retrospective report by their staff sounds dramatic. It reveals deep shock and irritation that left Abdoulaye apathetic and disturbed. The diagnosis: "acute post traumatic syndrome" (AME, internal report). After two years, he was presented as a "complete success." The psychiatrist released him as able to deal with his life on his own.

In Abdoulaye's own account no psychological treatment was mentioned. He spoke in a matter of fact tone. His arm was injured and treated, though it was never completely cured. It was the "unexpected betrayal" and rupture in a situation where he had managed to live well by his own account – even without papers – in the Promised Land of France that was the most important thing. He returned to this incident over and over again when speaking. Even if he did not explicitly accuse the French state or European migration policies for being deported, he named its administrative implementers, the prefecture and the police, as responsible and was very upset about them. In this sense, Abdoulaye's "illegal" situation became existential and pathological as it not only determined his state of health but brought it into relation with the administration of the immigration state that controlled and eventually excluded him by deporting him to Mali, – it turned him into a deportable commodity, no longer worth providing for. His body was only partially cured. He kept talking about Paris, but was in Mali for the time being doing little day-to-day jobs: "*je me débrouille*" ("I'm getting by"), he repeated. Still, he continued to be unable to do any "hard" work. The deportation left a physical imprint; an embodied memory of the sufferings of the migratory journey, his stay abroad, and of being deported.

#### **Spatial and temporal disorders over time**

The deep anger and violation caused by perceived unjust administrative treatment and the feeling of powerlessness may endure after deportations. In many instances the actual deportation experiences dated back a long time, but quickly became current when deportees renarrated their stories in our conversations. Some experiences seemed to cut particularly deep. In European countries, it appeared to be very unfortunate incidents that provoked deportations just before a person was regularized, as demonstrated in the cases of Lamine and Abdoulaye: the police not recognizing one's papers or acting arbitrarily. Many people were apprehended in the street and deported straight away. People were often furious, when they described their deportation to me and the conditions that occasioned it – their voices

were frantic and quivery. At the same time, I represented a supposedly powerful addressee potentially able to influence the situations that formed the subject of the conversation and thus the content of their narrative as well. Susan Coutin (2013) describes deportees' narratives of linear time resulting in "spatial disorder" if they are divorced through deportation (p. 334). A spatial and temporal disorder is the more disturbing the longer one has been abroad, most importantly if deportees emigrated as (little) children.22 Not even able to take one's belongings with one after all the years of transnational life, one may have arrived in Bamako with entirely empty hands. Such incidents can fundamentally disrupt someone who is being "disappeared from [his own] life" (Turnbull, 2018, p. 48) and "dispossessed of the time, [they] had before removal" (Martin, 2015; cf. Khosravi, 2018, p. 7). These people are indeed deeply "estranged." Being unexpectedly thrown back, as described above, constitutes a disconnect (Alpes, 2014) at multiple levels for those who aspired to and moved towards global connectedness (Geschiere & Nyamnjoh, 2000).

Lamine, back in Bamako, lived with some acquaintances of his mother's (from France). He reported feeling very uncomfortable at being thrown into something entirely unknown. Unlike his family, who had been legally living in France for years, Lamine had grown up with his grandmother in Mali. She died when he was 15, and he immediately left the village for Bamako "to feed himself." By chance, he met a friend of his father's, who set up contact with the family in France. Through their support and a tourist visa for Spain, he was eventually able to join them.  He does not understand, what has happened." His narratives kept up this presence far away (cf. Coutin, 2013, p. 334), and illustrated the spatial as well as a temporal rupture in his life in Bamako.

Maher speaks of a "third space of forced return" (2015, p. 37) in which people are obliged to live. Another "spatial disorder" phenomenon may come about when deportees are arbitrarily flown to the "wrong" place such as Ouagadougou or Abidjan instead of Bamako, where I met some people who had had this experience. Such treatment is likely to increase insecurity, disorientation, and distress post deportation even more.

Even so, Lamine appeared calmer, when we met three weeks after his deportation from France. The AME tried to support him in appealing his case at the French embassy, demanding a new visa and family reunification. The process was said to be going to take two to three months. We met a couple of times during these weeks and also talked over the phone. We planned a visit to where he lived. Nothing moved. One day, I was unable to reach him anymore. Eventually, and after talking to a representative of the AME, I realized that he might have re-emigrated, either

22 Drotbohm, for instance, develops an analysis of cases of deportation to Cape Verde (2016), Coutin for deportations to El Salvador (2013) and Peutz for forced returns to Somalia (2006).

clandestinely via the dangerous and deadly desert route, or suddenly through a forged visa obtained by the family. Clearly, he was unwilling and unable to continue waiting "powerlessly," being restless to go on. Re-emigration is an agentic reaction, besides potentially influencing the restriction of restrictive policies as well.

#### **Symbolism of the state**

Despite the apparent ingrained symbolism of the state exercising its sovereignty through deportations, in some of the deportees' narratives, the state's role remains interestingly undefined or only broadly addressed, while others accuse it quite aggressively. The state is mostly represented by the police officers responsible for carrying out the deportation or the reception afterward, as in Abdoulaye's and Lamine's accounts – but may also be personified in the staff of a prefecture, lawyers, social workers, or employers. Allusions to representatives of the deporting state are often pejorative, ranging from accusatory to hate-filled – like Lamine's, who wanted to kill the next French person he met. Anger can sometimes be the only possible form of revolt against the experience of subjection to unjust treatment, violation and criminalization. State bordering practices are seldom criticized as structural injustices but rather referred to as instances of individual suffering or individualized in some state's personnel. The social nature of suffering originating from politico-institutional interventions is not identified.

At the same time, for the respondents in Mali, especially potential (re-)emigrants, European states served as broad screens on which to project a safe haven of security, justice, and economic potentials. "Europe is much better than Africa," I was told in a multiplicity of ways. Through the media, transnational (migratory) contacts, and networks, people are well informed about the world abroad; consequently, harsh conditions are also well-known. At the same time, "it was the European Union, which financed" the €50 return assistance for Brahima and Souleymane. Against this background, deportations may be experienced as particularly arbitrary and incomprehensible.

In the case of deportations on the African continent, such as from the Maghreb countries, human rights violations take place out of official and often mediatized European or international sight, even though, or perhaps because, they occur within the framework of the EU's externalized mandate outside European territory. Legal standards seem to count for less there. Indeed, deportations from North African countries seem to be valued less by deportees themselves, considered less drastic in terms of global social inequalities and unjust treatment, even if some of the accounts, as in the case of Salif, report extreme violence. Moreover, although African nation-states have been deporting people in large numbers since their independence and are now increasingly being "paid" by the EU for deporting African citizens to keep them away (as developed in Chapter 2), the externalization of deportation practices from European shores to North and West Africa has resulted in a new collectivity of return, which seems to play a role in social and symbolic terms as well, making a return potentially less severe and shameful for the individual. Involuntary return from a European country, by contrast, is usually a lonesome experience. Deportations, even in cases involving a charter from Spain, or previously France, seldom reach numbers comparable with those for intra-African deportations and repatriations. Moreover, deporting European states do not return entire villages or city districts, as people are usually caught randomly and individually.

Brahima, Abdoulaye, Souleymane, and many others, who were deported from European countries, France, Spain, and increasingly Italy, were outspoken about preferring to stay in Bamako when they got back to Mali. From many accounts, a return to the village is more difficult after a deportation from Europe. The "estrangement" between life in a European city and in the Malian hinterland can be particularly enormous – the more so, the longer one has been away. And, several of these men had been living in Bamako before they left. More importantly, in small villages, the unfulfilled expectations relating to travel to Europe are impossible to hide (see Chapter 5). Brahima, Abdoulaye, and others reported on contacts with other adventurers, who had been deported recently by the same charter or whom they met on their reception by the *protection civil*e 23 or at the AME. Some met with fellow returnees randomly in the streets, as I met them. With increasing numbers of deportees since the refugee crisis, these experiences have become ever more collective.

The differences in the perceived gravity of deportation from Europe as opposed to North Africa hint at a critical symbolism regarding which state deports. It makes a fundamental difference whether people reached a European country before being deported or if they were forcibly returned en route. In the former case, reemigrating was not a simple matter, but a costly, hazardous, and potentially impossible endeavor in a time of constrained mobilities. Spatial and temporal disorders caused by deportations contribute an added symbolic charge to migration to, and likewise deportation from, the European continent in comparison to migrations within Africa.

23 The General Directorate of Civil Protection of Mali (Direction Générale de la Protection Civile, DGPC), created by order n°98-026/P-RM of August 25, 1998' is a central Directorate attached to the Ministry of Security and Civil Protection. The DGPC, among many other things, oversees welcoming the groups of deportees upon their arrival at Bamako airport. This institutional assistance structure consists, however, in a very minimal reception in the premises of the civil protection (cf. Lecadet, 2011).

The symbolic potency of Europe can also become a value for someone who has already been "there." Brahima, who stayed "only 40 days" in Tenerife, was called "the Spaniard" and used to greet me with "Hola, ¿como estas?" It gave him an air of sophistication and, what I term, "adventure-hood," a combination of the terms adventure and adulthood, related to the particular experience of the migratory adventure (see further Chapter 6). Beyond the specific experiences of the migration and deportation themselves, the symbolic meaning of the destination from which one was deported seems to impact on a person's return and conditions post deportation to a considerable extent as well. The means of transportation used by the specific deportation regime are of importance too: whether it is a deportation by air or over land, by plane, bus, or truck. Former deportees somehow proudly emphasize that they have been deported by plane. Being deported by airplane from Europe appears to carry a particular value in many deportees' eyes.

Interestingly, (Malian) nationality serves for many as an identity anchor during turbulent migratory journeys. Depicting places of transit, for instance, former deportees may compare themselves with migrants from other countries, who may not have the same qualities, particularly as courageous adventurers.24 This underlines the meaning of the collectivity of travel, which becomes a collectivity both of transit and potential return. The group of adventurers may be a source of security, protection, and confidence in all these hazards and sufferings. Although earlier deportees were detained upon arrival, in respondents' narratives the Malian administrative forces, such as police officers, airport staff, and the civil protection service are depicted as neutral or positive in their reception and facilitation activities. One's citizenship may keep one grounded to some degree amid the insecurity of being thrown into conditions post deportation. Clara Lecadet (2013) has analyzed the interrelations within deportations in transit, such as through the organization of collective groups in "ghettos" according to citizenship, and also after their return, when "citizenship can be used as a temporary response to the politics of rejection by foreign states." It "offers a form of opposition to the state's practices and politics which may seem minimal, but is nonetheless symbolically powerful in this context" (p. 145). In this same vein, citizenship serves as a positive anchor for individual and collective agency in light of rejection and abandonment by the state (p. 157).25 From

24 A related phenomenon is the organization of one's group in the form of a national "ghetto," as with the Cameroonians in the Bamako market hall (see Chapter 3) or the Congolese, Ivorian or Nigerian ghettos at the Mali–Algerian border analyzed by Lecadet (2013). This established practice has become mediatized with the so-called ghettos on the route to the Mediterranean, most notably in Oujda or Maghnia, Algeria and Morocco (cf. also Andersson, 2014).

25 Lecadet (2013, p. 157) follows "the idea of Abdelmalek Sayad that, if the issue of citizenship has had different meanings and had been subject to changes over the past century, it was still the only means of affirmation and recognition of a political and civil existence."

this point of view, involuntary and forced return to one's place of citizenship may have aspects of being taken to a safe haven as well, and be a fundamental source of individual and collective agency.

#### **Concluding remarks**

This first analytical chapter has shown how deportations rupture the sociopolitical realities of migrants' lives and illustrates the damage inflicted by European as well as North African deportation regimes that are reinforced by externalized controls – controls that condition substantial aid payments to countries like Mali and enforce cross-border expulsions there. It has done so by describing what such deportation experiences do to deportees, personally and through broader societal responses, based on narratives of deportation experiences detailing violent, traumatic, and unexpected returns. Repeated *refoulements*, living long years in transit situations, or hiding undocumented in Europe have impacted peoples' bodies, their very appearance, and their sense of self. These embodied memories of various forms of social suffering eventually become part of the notion of the (failed) migratory adventure. Many live through numerous deportations and phases of hyper mobility and waiting before they can return to their own country and, potentially, to their village at last. For quite a number of them, deportation constitutes only one moment in their migration cycle. The destinations of deportations, and the specific migratory journeys and back-and-forth experiences produced by the violent structures of North African and European deportation regimes, may differ, but, as the chapter shows, there are similar patterns in almost all accounts of deportation, and the social suffering that results is both collective and individual. Specific emotions noted include alienation, stress, disorientation, fear, and anger, and a deep sense of social injustice. Many former deportees appear restless, disillusioned, and distressed, especially shortly after the deportation experience; they sense that they have "failed" in their "existential quest" (Hage, 2005; cf. Stock, 2019). People may be "doubly abandoned," "estranged," and stigmatized, facing even more difficulties "at home" upon their return than they faced before – mental, physical, economic, and social. And many are immobilized afterwards. Suffering is the expression of how people experience and deal with these situations. This chapter has shown the spectrum of suffering undergone by deportees depicted in their narrative accounts, shedding light on this macro-, meso-, and microcosm of deportation experiences and thus what impacts conditions post deportations. It has, moreover, served to further introduce the people whom this whole study is about.

Using Kleinman & Kleinman's terminology, forms of suffering "caused by extreme conditions," which are at the same time, or may become, "routinized forms" of suffering through and after deportation as they continue impacting on deportees' memories and their representations, are what is at issue here. The concept of social suffering was introduced to best capture these entanglements. Throughout this chapter, I have highlighted expressions of agency by former deportees, selforganized groups of deportees and other actors as well as the broader population. Former deportees express different forms of agency despite their subjection to deportation practices. Even in the most destitute and desperate situations agency and subjectivity are possible. Nicholas De Genova (2018) speaks of the "autonomy of deportations" (p. 262), for example, and I have shown that mere survival can express agency, in the shape of a restless going on, as can the decision to leave again. Even a decision to stay expresses agency – likewise collective forms of travel, transit, return, and protest and demands for more social justice above all. Organizations of former deportees help – or at least try – to bridge the space between structures and agency, capacities and desires (cf. van Houte et al., 2016). While the Kleinmans define agency in terms of suffering from the marginalized positions of individual people, the chapter has indicated, how all these experiences and memories of deportations have become increasingly collective. I will draw this point out further in the last analytical chapter of the book, Chapter 7. The central question being whether, in the longer run, people consider themselves as suffering (cf. Bruijn et al., 2007) after deportations or not, will be one major aspect to be discussed in Chapter 6. A potentially "failed," ambivalent adventure and the suffering related to it may, in the end, become part of suffering as a condition of life.

## **Chapter 5 "It's [not] all about money." – About returning with empty hands and relational (re)negotiations in the adventurer's drama of return**

In the context of southern Mali, money and wealth play a central though ambivalent role socially, particularly in post-deportation conditions. The central narrative of suffering and potential failure in deportees' accounts revolves around "returning with empty hands" (*"les mains vides"; bololankoloun* or *tègèlàkoloun*1 ) after having left "to look for money" (*"chercher de l'argent"; ka taaga wari gnini; warignini).* Salif, the father of eight children and husband of two wives whose story I told in the introductory chapter, returned with nothing in his hands, in other words destitute. Brahima in the previous chapter felt demoralized most of all because all his money had been "wasted" – a thing to be avoided by any possible means, people say, because it can lead to rejection and a deep sense of shame at not having made it. Kleist calls it "the epitome of failure" (2017a, p. 184). This chapter, most importantly it is about the meaning of contributing, reproduction, and the management of social relations.

"Family," "leaving," and "money" are the words I find mentioned most often in all my fieldwork documents – transcribed interviews, conversations and notes – when I word-filter them through the MAXQDA analysis tool.2 This assigns the discursive level, giving evidence not only of established narratives, but also of the practices of family/kinship, livelihood, and mobility, which are intrinsically interconnected in West Africa. The particular meanings of money on the one hand and wealth more generally on the other have to be differentiated and analyzed more carefully, however, especially, again, in the post-deportation context. According to my respondents' narratives and practices, money is primarily needed to support one's kin and for use in the livelihood economy. One has to have it to marry, to

1 "*Retourner avec les mains vides*" is *ka segin bololankoloun* in Bambara.

2 Particularly in the second field phase as I conducted more research in the rural village(s) of return, where family connections were more explicit in everyday life and conversations.

build a house, for education and schooling, for leaving as well as staying, not least for participating in the consumption economy and, importantly, for acquisitions to be used in agriculture or in building up a small business. In the end, the aim is to become rich and bring wealth to the family. All that makes "a man." "Money helps to solve problems," as one deportee summarized it. In sum, money is needed for all the important matters in life, and wealth is considered to be what you can achieve by means of money. It is the ultimate goal, the end result of the whole process in terms of social status, becoming someone (*ka kè waritiguiyé*), and benefitting one's kin. Respondents consistently refer to money or means ("*moyens*"); this will be the term principally scrutinized here as well.

The meaning of going out to look for money and returning with empty hands can thus only be understood by regarding its broader social and symbolic dimensions, its "cultural matrix" (Parry & Bloch, 1989, p. 1). Narratively, money seems to be everything, but it is still not of capital importance. A common trope in Mali is "the highly ambiguous image of 'money,' both as epitome of what is aspired to yet cannot be achieved and as an almost personalized force responsible for the erosion of trust, love, and a sense of moral obligation" (Schulz, 2002, p. 813; see also Schulz, 2012, 2005; Weiss, 1996; Taussig, 1980). The monetization and commoditization of everyday life in African societies has been the subject of many debates (e.g., Jackson, 2017; Wooten, 2005; Guyer, 2004, 1995; Parry & Bloch, 1989; Hart, 1982)3 : an obsession with possession is said to stand face to face with an increasing lack of financial means and prospects (cf. Mbembe, 2007).4 Even so, money may have a fundamentally preserving function for social relations, as Parry & Bloch (1989) suggest in their standard work on the subject.

3 While money and monetization are not solely related to capitalist ideology (cf. Graeber, 2011; Parry & Bloch, 1989), commoditization refers to the introduction of market economies. According to Arhin(1995), monetization can be understood in two senses:"in the technical sense of a generally accepted medium of payment," and "in the substantive sense," which is applied for the purposes of this work, "of the extent to which the accepted medium of payment forms the basis of transactions or interactions in areas of the economy and in the social and political sectors" (Arhin, 1995, p. 97; cf. also Bohannan & Dalton, 1962, pp. 20ff; Wooten, 2005; Parry & Bloch, 1989, p. 12; Taussig 1980). Commoditization, as coined by Hart (1982), is used to define the unprecedented level of economic integration in human society and its evolution as an allencompassing dialectic process, related to the growth of capitalism, the market economy, industrialism, and other aspects of life, centering on "a division of labor," and the production and exchange of commodities (p. 38). The term "commodification" further refers to the fact that consumption has taken over from production as the driving force structuring society (cf. Van Hear, 2014, p. 104; cf. Castoriadis, 1964).

4 Neoliberalism in particular has given rise to new forms of wealth and inequalities in economic production and social reproduction (cf. Meiu, 2017, p. 157; see also Comaroff & Comaroff, 2001).

West Africans have been using money for a very long time, but "the monetization of [their] economies accelerated and intensified in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries" (Berry, 1995, p. 299). The incorporation of West African economies into global markets in the 1980s made states as well as ordinary people "increasingly vulnerable" to fluctuations in those markets (Guyer, 1995, p. 17). Monetary transactions became ambiguous or unstable and people tried to maintain or create alliances and networks to negotiate successfully over goods and services. In turn, the ambiguity of social relations rendered the returns on social investments uncertain. Economic and political instabilities play into such bargaining and require a substantial multiplication of social networks and their management (Berry, 1995, p. 309). Accordingly, money is a contested issue relating to a whole complex of social dynamics, relations, and positions, particularly within the family. After deportation, these are challenged and need to be (re)negotiated – not least the social order itself.

Migratory adventures have themselves become a versatile object of monetization and commodification, and the "ultimate act of consumption" (Newell, 2012, p. 186). As in other rites of passage, such as marriage and death, monetary payments have replaced gifts in kind, or gifts of personal support and loyalty (cf. Arhin, 1995, pp. 97f), particularly with respect to earning money abroad and remitting it back home. Deportations disrupt this monetary endeavor. Intrinsically embedded in multiple social webs, they substantially impact upon social relations and the economic stability sometimes of an entire family, being bound to affect people's health and sense of themselves in fundamental ways.

Even though most consider themselves simply as *refoulé*s, it does seem to make a difference how somebody has been deported, after how long a period of time, and from where, so that a socio-economic repositioning is usually necessary. Money and its loss are thus a useful starting point for fleshing out the social ambivalences of "failed" migratory adventures in order to better understand situations post deportation and provide a more fine-grained analysis of them that goes beyond the restlessness, desperation, and suffering previously described. Consequently, I want to explore "leaving to look for money" and "returning with empty hands" as a set of material, social, moral, and symbolic processes, practices, and representations of value in order to understand what seeking wealth and experiencing loss reveal about the making of social worlds after a person has been deported (cf. Meiu, 2017, p. 143). To do so, I will empirically deepen the cases of Salif and Karim, contrasting them with Yakouba, who did return with some money. This principally relates to being embedded after deportation. Against this background, it is necessary to reflect further on the connection between searching for money and contributing (*ka gwa dème*) as a "good" member of society. In the second part of the chapter, I will further develop this theme with regard to the subjects' respective (re)negotiations and positioning of themselves within the family and neighborhood relations

as well as to the social dynamics of shame, silence, and gossip over time and how they relate to contesting or confirming the social order. To conclude, I will briefly reflect on the ambivalent social and symbolic dimensions of money, wealth and debt vis-à-vis restricted mobilities and large-scale immobility post deportation in southern Mali.

### **Salif, Karim and returning to the village: "***tounga man ja"* **5**

Deportees describe returning empty-handed to one's family's village as demoralizing, deeply disturbing, and the primary source of their suffering after deportation. Salif returned, like many others, after a time of recovery with his brother in Bamako. Even though he was deported, like thousands more in the post-Gaddafi turmoil in 2011, he seemed to feel an individual responsibility for his loss. He was torn between resignation and relief, between having lost tremendous sums of money and the joy of being back healthy and alive: "It is a pity, but it is a pleasure, and also disturbing, the money that you've lost," (cf. Chapter 1) he sets the loss of money at the center of his narrative. Before leaving the village, Salif had been saving bit by bit. For 10 years he cultivated peanuts and bred animals. In addition, he sold his two draft oxen. Salif is a scrawny-looking fellow, thin, but strong. Like many of his age here, he is missing a number of teeth, which is clearly visible when he smiles. After his return to the village, he was unable to sleep, having difficulty believing what had happened to him. We should remember his traumatic accounts of living in Libyan prisons given in the previous chapter:

I went for one week without sleep because this situation, in which I was deported, was very difficult for me, especially when you see the situation of the family. There are also some people with whom you went to the same class in school and when you see them, they have money; so if you think about all that, you get upset (*dérangé*), and many of my class mates work in administration, which is why I wanted to go and search [for money] abroad. So, if it's not possible, I'll come back, won't I? [*laughs*]

It's lack of means that forces us to do the agriculture, if not, one does not earn anything you get less to eat and you have less wealth. (Salif, 11-1-2015)

Salif 's economic situation when he got back was much worse than before, which obliged him to return to the village: "I had no other choice; all the money was lost." The comparison with the others' success – "they have money" – had originally pushed him to leave. In his village it is clear who has money and who does

5 "The adventure did not work," in French: "*l'aventure n'est pas marché.*"

not, and it is most visible in the investments (or lack of them) made in everyone's houses. Corrugated iron as the roof of the house is a sign of success in comparison to a roof made of straw; walls made of concrete are seen as a major advance on traditional walls made of mud, as the former withstand the rainy season, which is an existential advantage in this climatic region. Salif did not come from an overall poor family, though. Dolores Koenig conducted research in the area of Salif 's village, some ten kilometers south of the capital of the administrative area, investigating the connections between structural stratification and migration (Koenig, 2005a, 2005b, 1986). In terms of her findings, Salif came from a sufficiency household where potentially some, albeit small, investments in housing and schooling were possible.6 Several graduate students lived in the family's village compound, searching and waiting for jobs: their elder brother, a small businessman in Bamako, was trying to find them something. Leaving to work abroad in order to support the family financially was meticulously planned. That it did not work out (*tounga man ja*) caused deep anxiety in view of the responsibility that Salif proved unable to take on. Still, he laughed. It was like a sign of desperation, but at the same time it somehow signaled acceptance – if he could not make it abroad, he would try here, even if it was generally more difficult.

Karim, Salif 's childhood friend, gave similar reports about his deportation from Libya, which had taken place two years earlier. First, he refused to return to the village at all:

I did not have so much money, that's why I went to Mamoutou [my brother]; also the aim was to rest down there. That was more comfortable for me than going to the village directly. In this moment, it was hard for me. My spirit was tumbled because, when you look at it, I went to school, it did not work out, and then I left on the adventure. They deported me to Mali. I did not like this. These two defeats marked me very much. That's why I took the initiative to go to Mamoutou. He and I, we could talk better and he could also provide me with some advice before I returned to the village. I could not go directly to the village, because I had left there to go and search for money. Well, the fact that the adventure did not work out, I did not know how to come to the village and explain this to my family (*laughs*). This was difficult. My father and my mother were old, and I returned from the adventure with empty hands. Oh, it was difficult for me to return to the village. (Karim, 10-31-2015)

6 Dolores Koenig differentiates "sufficiency" households from "more than sufficiency" and "insufficiency" ones. While more than sufficiency households are able to invest in various activities, insufficiency households often lacked the labor or capital to maintain adequate living standards (Koenig, 2005a, pp. 84f).

Karim impressively describes the difficulties of returning without money, emptyhanded, unable to contribute and care for his aging parents. Penniless, he first of all took refuge with relatives for one month in Bamako. Then he went on to his brother, who was based in the community administration of another region. "My spirit was tumbled" and "my heart cried"7 he graphically describes his deep emotions: first, his career as a teacher had not worked out, as he was sick for a long period; and the second try supported by his brother failed. He decided to leave his home village, go towards the Sahara and Libya and later continue to Europe. This is the processual, but at the same time ad hoc, development of migratory journeys that other respondents report. Leaving becomes an "exit option," as Aminata Dramane Traoré (2008, p. 34) calls it, when repeated failures – in school, education, and agriculture or within the family – add up. However, Karim's adventure did not work out either: without papers, he was caught in his "foyer"8 in Tripoli, where he was working as a private gardener. Some were able to flee over the wall; Karim was imprisoned. After two weeks with little food and dirty water, he was flown out on a charter back to Bamako: "I did not earn any money. This was hard (*o ka gèlèn*)." He talks about his migratory "defeat." Karim was ashamed – though he did not say so explicitly. It was his brother who eventually encouraged him to return. At that time, Karim was one of the first deportees in the village.

#### Yakouba's return with some money

Once a migratory adventure does not work out, it means an economic setback and immediate decrease in life chances for the whole family (cf., e.g., Bredeloup, 2017; Drotbohm, 2015; Schuster & Madji, 2015) – it is irretrievable, as Salif said. To have sent remittances during one's absence would have been a better preparation for one's return (cf. Calenda, 2014b). Others who were able to send money seem to have had fewer difficulties, even if they returned unexpectedly and had been forced to do so. Yakouba, another young man in the village, seemed self-assured: "I did not have any difficulties with the family," he announced, "because when I was there [in Libya], I sent money and they [the family] did not wish me to find myself in difficulty when I returned. They helped me to do something." In Yakouba's eyes, the

7 My spirit was tumbled in Bambara: *né hakili koun fènan kodjoukou*; my heart cried: *o fila faralen gnongon kan; o yé ne dousou kas*i.

8 "Foyer" describes the communal accommodation of Malians abroad, often in very basic conditions. It has multiple functions such as social cohesion and security and, not least, allows one to maintain oneself cheaply over longer periods of stay. Often people live together in regional and ethnic networks, even ones that are specific to particular communities and villages of origin (cf., e.g., Cagnol, 2012; Calandre & Ribert, 2012), see online for instance https://montreuilonthemove.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/bamako-sur-seine-foyer-ba ra-montreuils-malian-village/, accessed 31 October 2021.

fact that he sent money was the reason for his smooth return. He came from a large family in the village. Most of his brothers and uncles were on site. "My father was old and I am the only son." Monetary support was needed, so he left his wife and little daughter "to search for money." He earned for his journey as a farm worker in the neighboring district and sold animals. Like Salif, he lost a fortune: for three years he worked as a gardener and transferred a sum to a facilitator to go by boat to Italy, but also sent some money home. He even financed his cousin to join him. After deportation, he stayed with family members in Bamako too, but worked on a construction site. Back in the village, Yakouba was able to buy some new animals to continue his livestock farming. In the event, he was able to share and contribute before leaving, during his absence, and after his return; he could thus somehow comply with the pre-eminent requirement, that of making a contribution.

In research on return migration, "preparedness" (e.g., Gerlach, 2018; Plambech, 2018; Turnbull, 2018; Hernández-Carretero, 2017; Cassarino, 2016, 2004; Flahaux, 2015; Sinatti, 2011) and "embeddedness" before and after the adventure are centrally discussed categories for ensuring a beneficial return, also in terms of development (e.g., Ruben et al. 2009; Davids & van Houte, 2008; Kloosterman, 2006). In a quantitative and qualitative investigation into return in Mali, Jean-Pierre Cassarino and colleagues' country comparison study (2014) found that the large majority of returns to Mali had been involuntary interruptions of migration cycles (cf. Chapter 1): being deprived of the possibility of deciding for oneself when, how, and whether to go back, was shown to be the most restricting factor with regard to a decent return and the returnee's ability to reintegrate sustainably, as it had the most degrading effect on his or her autonomy. Through deportation, any preparation for a return is violently cut off and rendered impossible, "non-existent" as Cassarino puts it (2014, p. 7; 2004, p. 20). Transnational connections can serve as source of social belonging while away, as well as for financial and social embeddedness after one's return (cf. Carling & Erdal, 2014; Ruben et al., 2009). The (social) embeddedness approach – with Kloosterman (2006) and Van Houte & Davids (2008) I understand embeddedness to consist in the relevant context and networks established before leaving and while away, and re-established after deportation – is particularly useful for analyzing situations after deportation as it allows one to capture conceptually the different contextual dimensions in which a person operates.9 Khosravi (2018)

9 Kloosterman's approach of "mixed embeddedness" (2006) refers to economic, psychosocial, and social networks "and van Houte and Davids' "multidimensional and multilocal embeddedness" (2008) to different contexts, and spaces – in territorial (multi-local) and non-territorial terms. Van Houte & Davids highlight the importance of identity formation, which can be disturbed after deportations by being rejected by the closest family; it can also hinder the establishment of social networks, which are otherwise central for "re-embedding in all dimensions" (pp. 185f) after return.

furthermore sees the intersection of several factors, such as class, gender, age, and ethnicity as affecting one's embedding in society after deportation (p. 2). Preparation for one's return is thus of central importance (Flahaux et al., 2017, p. 1).10 The lucky ones are those who are able to stay long enough to find a good job that enables them to remit money home and thus prepare the way for their return.

Salif and Karim had not been able to send or bring anything home in material terms. Committing themselves to work in agriculture was their last way out. However, their families enabled them to recover. Even though both had been unable to send gifts, they had kept up contact.11 Kinship relations and the rural household served as their last refuge (Gaibazzi, 2015a, pp. 152f). The latter are put under particular pressure simultaneously, which forces them to "reconstruct" accordingly (cf. Carsten, 2004). Calenda illustrates how "half of the interviewees who did receive support [from their families] also experienced re-integration problems. Strong family expectations – e.g. of gifts, favors, financial support – constituted by far the major difficulty the returnees experienced" (Calenda, 2014b, p. 62). Accordingly, money is a central means both for leaving and for enabling a more dignified return, even if deported. Beyond the material aspect, it appears to be one's care for and presence among the family that count– something that I will analyze in more depth in the following section.

#### **Searching for money, "success," and the meaning of contributing**

Primarily people say they are leaving in order "to search for money" (*warignini*), and "to succeed" ("*il faut réussir"*), even if other factors are involved. First of all, this should be treated as a discursive framing of the migration: it is considered a legitimate reason for going, as opposed, for example, to leaving because of family conflicts. Most of the former deportees I spoke to then named the existential and social needs of their kin, their everyday hardship and perceived powerlessness (*"c'était la misère ici"; fatagna, geleya*). For many who come from a low- to middle-class rural background and have little formal education, a job in the administration as a teacher or functionary, such as Salif 's former classmates obtained, is often desired but usually unattainable. Even those who go to live in Bamako have the larger

10 Cassarino defines "preparedness" in terms of "willingness" and "readiness" (2004, p. 17). Collyer (2018) identifies three central factors: returnees' work experience and skills, their social capital, and their ability to plan their return (p. 123); for more on this subject see the concluding chapter.

11 According to Cliggett's work with Zambian migrants, contact with the family is the most important thing while they are away (2003, p. 544).

part of their family back in the village, like Brahima or Abdoulaye, whom I described before. Everyday hardship and a certain powerlessness (*fatagna*), as referred to above, have been discussed as existential conditions, characteristic of everyday life in Africa (e.g., Féliz & Rosenberg, 2017; Mahkulu et al., 2010; Chabal, 2009, pp. 150ff; Bruijn et al., 2007; Jackson, 2005a).

The repercussions of economic liberalization cause feelings of "abjection" (Ferguson, 2006, 1999) and becoming part of a "global precariat" (Standing, 2011). Schulz (2012) has elaborated on the Bamana term *geleya* recurring in daily conversations in Malian urban contexts, particularly since the devaluation of the FCFA referred to in Chapter 2, indicating "the emotional and material dimensions of the daily struggle to make a living": "money affairs have become difficult" (*wari ko gèlèyara*), a shortage of money creates a general feeling of helplessness. Mbembe (cf. 2007; 2001) and Buggenhagen speak of a "moral crisis" (2012) even threatening the very basis of society.12

Eventually, all this leads back to a more general African discourse on "the fault of money," referred to in the previous paragraph, and its absence as a cause of poverty and suffering, as one side of the coin. In conversations with respondents, a narrative presentation of this kind may additionally be fostered by the power discrepancies in our research setting, which are impossible to bridge (see Chapter 3). Back in the 1930s, Meyer Fortes, one of the pioneers of the anthropological study of West Africa, identified the reference to poverty in people's self-representations as stereotypical (Fortes, 1936; cf. Ungruhe, 2010, p. 263); it was a practice that I found to be indeed widespread and conspicuous, and which could in itself suffice as a productive basis for analysis and insight. Clearly it cannot be denied that people live with, and leave as a result of, the existential and structurally induced need for a livelihood, as prominently discussed already. Obtaining money to care for one's kin usually plays a primordial role in this; furthermore, it is a way out of the moral crisis mentioned.

Adama, whom I call the modest philosopher and artist of life in Bamako and who came originally from a small village on the Malian border with the Ivory Coast, brought all these aspects together in an exemplary way. He recalled his intention to leave his mother's home when he was only 12 years old, back in 1984:

Adama: Everybody left because when there is no money, you have to leave. Susanne: Was that the case for you too?

12 Mbembe and Roitman moreover figure that "the crisis is exiled to the domain of the inexplicable" as the enduring crisis and the transformations going along with it "are not necessarily correlated to precise factors and historical referents, even if one is aware" of them (1995, p. 338).

Adama: Well I… I felt like leaving… It was also that I had to leave for elsewhere. Like my parents, everybody was in a terrible situation ("*étaient dans la galère"*) (Adama, 1-7-2016).

Miserable poverty and a consequent need to contribute to the family were at the core. By that time, structural adjustment measures and privatizations were starting to have a negative effect. The downturn in agriculture that followed came after several droughts, in which the effects of climate change began to become slowly visible, while at the same time, the need for consumption started to rise and increased people's dependence on off-farm incomes (cf. Wooten, 2009).13 Adama went on to describe his first years as an adventurer, mainly within the region:

Yes, I was young. Because I started with Burkina… And a very new bike… At that time, this bike signified a success! (*laughs*)

I did not even stay for two months before I left again … I went off down there and stayed two or three years … I returned. But since I have been leaving on adventures, I have barely stayed two, maximum three months in the village. When … I come, I stay a little bit of time and I leave again. After I left for Senegal, I did not send any more news. In those days, there were no mobile phones. The people thought, maybe he is dead. It's embarrassing, when you don't have anything. Ah, it's not good if you don't have money, that's embarrassing. As if you didn't have a goal. (Adama, 1-7-2016)

Beyond the existential hardship of the family, which obviously required Adama's financial support, a new bike was the aim of his adventurous endeavor to *warignini*. Today it would be at least a motorbike, Adama laughs. These new signs of success and status go beyond the "traditional" aims of earning money for the bride price and contributing to the family livelihood (cf. Ungruhe, 2010). People want to buy, to construct and own the requirements for an increasingly modern life. Many simply state that there is no money where they are – particularly that income from agriculture can barely be monetized in light of low prices for surplus crops while the majority of the harvest serves for the subsistence of the family, without sufficing for the whole of the year.14 In the city, people can run small businesses and do little jobs without much schooling (see further Chapter 6). "There is nothing here," was something I heard very often, and, more specifically, "there is no money in Mali." The latter reflected the then current feeling of increased uncertainty, crisis, and powerlessness caused by the Malian conflict. Mbembe speaks of an "incessant imperative to travel far away to earn money" (Mbembe, 2007, p. 305), even if money

13 Gaibazzi describes the differences between "for money" and "for life" production in a Gambian Soninké village (2015a, p. 143).

14 Usually additional grains need to be bought towards the end of the dry season; here for cash is needed.

itself has a "highly ambiguous image" (Schulz, 2002, p. 813). At the same time, schooling is seen by many as a mere delay.

The real economic conditions hardly enable anyone to make money in the village, but besides that according to local beliefs earning money on site is for strangers only and otherwise beneath one's dignity; to do it is thought to damage one's status as a person and impair one's honor (cf. Whitehouse, 2012; Jónsson, 2007). Jobs that are considered low-status and are assigned to strangers only can, however, be done elsewhere, in the city or abroad (Diawara, 2003a, p. 77). In fact, young men do engage in some economic activities on site, as many do not have the capacity or opportunity to leave, or the family may require them to stay, particularly in conditions post deportation (see further Chapter 6).

Even so, young men in particular have traditionally been expected to leave, not least in "functional" terms to learn how to become the head of a family, by knowing how to take decisions and lead and by being generally able to take care of things. For some, migration has also been a way to gain independence and escape from family pressure (de Haan & Rogaly, 2002, p. 7, cf. Koenig, 2005a, p. 80), to follow a certain lifestyle, to buy consumption goods, and eventually to achieve wealth for the family. In this sense, they learnt to remit from very early on (cf. Hertrich & Lesclingand, 2013, p. 181). Dolores Koenig observed: "While some elders … showed concern about the timing of migration or the behavior of a particular migrant, they did not question the appropriateness of migration itself " (Koenig, 2005a, p. 80). Talking about his schoolfellows, Salif said that driving a motor to leave on an adventure is often said to be the mark of those "who have made it."15 This kind of comparison with one's neighbors can also be discussed alongside the concept of "relative deprivation": proximity and perceived similarity are seen as key factors in the selection of a reference group for comparison of one's economic status (Stark & Taylor, 1989). When migration and mobility are seen as strategies to improve one's life chances, as long as social inequalities persist, relative deprivation may be a motor for expectations of migrating and achieving something. As a successful migrant, one can form part of the transnational exchange and remittance economy and build even more powerful networks of support. Meanwhile, the realization of a migratory adventure itself has become a highly expensive endeavor, often achievable only with the help of social networks and relations. Moreover, the probability of success has decreased substantially through externalized borders and migratory restrictions making migratory "failures" much more common.

Most people are webbed into a dense cluster of social relations and networks that require constant reciprocal exchanges. "If you have money, you can support everybody," Yakouba's uncle claims in the sense of Marshall Sahlin's concept of "gen-

15 The notions of envy and jealousy are at the heart of the migratory adventure and link to old notions of Mandé as I will show in the next section.

eralized reciprocity" (1965), a relation where everything circulates freely to eventually balance out all accounts, even if that may be particularly difficult between parents and children.16 Money is part of everyday relations, not only in the villages in the south of Mali to ensure the intimate ties between a son and his mother, but also in the much more generalized reciprocity that is practiced between neighbors, friends, and also absent migrants. Relationships are constituted through exchanges of money and gifts, particularly in times of crisis (cf. Buggenhagen, 2012). Not only elder brothers, but also fathers and uncles or mothers and aunts may contribute to one's adventurous journey or to building up a business or funding any other activity, as much as they can. These contributions are sometimes mentioned by the way in the respondents' narrations, as if they formed part of an exchange that could be taken for granted. Otherwise, not taking over one's "care duties at certain life stages would be interpreted as an expression of disrespect or personal failure" (Alber & Drotbohm, 2015, p. 11).

Former deportees often claim that they decided to leave by themselves, after informing a hierarchically higher male relative. In fact, the family head may no longer be able to support their journeys as was previously the case. This renders the son's adventure economically even more important for the family, while imbuing it with more familial and potentially moral power. The intergenerational conflicts this may generate will be discussed in the next chapter. Given the idea that the individual serves the collective good, a person's wealth lies in his or her labor and capacity to contribute: wealth has, therefore, long been considered to consist in people (Meillassoux, 1981), and not in land, though access to land used to be easy (cf. Lentz, 2006).17 In the end, people can obtain money, realize projects and become someone, which is what wealth is considered to be in current terms. This powerful institutionalization makes some even sneak out through "abrupt departures" (Koenig, 2005a, p. 89) without telling anybody. Usually, these endeavors have not created major constraints, at least not in the cases reported to me. The son's autonomous decision rather links in with the concept of an adventure as a project towards man- and adulthood. As a self-evident and necessary component of family livelihoods and embedded in the broader household strategy (cf. Massey et al., 1993, pp. 436ff; cf. Chapter 2), however, plans, to (re-)emigrate, can be refused by the family head as well (Koenig, 2005a, pp. 88f). Preferences for staying

16 Mauss realized earlier that some relationships never balance out, e.g., between a mother and a child. In the form of an "alternating reciprocity" one repays one's parents by having children oneself (cf. Graeber, 2011, p. 91; 405n.21).

17 Land is likewise attached through people and labor (Shipton, 2006, pp. 229f). This is admittedly a rather simplistic presentation, as access to and possession of land have been shaped by a multiplicity of historical and current processes and experiments since the colonialization of property rights and the colonists' local handling of complex symbolic, material, and spiritual meanings (Lentz, 2013; Shipton, 2009, 2006; cf. also Whitehouse, 2012).

or leaving, particularly within family contexts, are hard to disentangle: "individual agency … remains a perplexing area" (Carling & Schewel, 2017, p. 14). Through deportations the reciprocity enabled by the migratory adventure is endangered. What this "shortage of money" eventually implies for familial and social relations will be developed in what follows.

#### **Social and familial renegotiations and positioning post deportation**

Even if the traumatic experiences of the journey hit hard and cause sensations of restlessness for both young and older deportees, it is the loss of money, expressed in the emblematic phrase "returning with empty hands" in its material, but more than that in its symbolic dimension, which substantially impacts the individual and his or her relatives. It further leads into the core of the social situation post deportation and its essential ambivalence.

#### On shame and "*fa den sago*"

All the deportees described so far demonstrated feelings and uttered expressions of shame and embarrassment as a result of, as they say, not having "found" money yet or, more importantly, having lost it. Many shy away from returning to their parents' village. Salif and Karim were unable to sleep. Others, restlessly again, took the hazardous route to the north, like Souleymane or Madou in the previous chapter, in order to achieve their objective. According to Scheff (2003), shame appears the moment one does not conform to an expected role, as when "seeing one's self negatively from the point of view of the other" (Scheff, 2003, p. 247, building on Cooley (1922) and Darwin (1872)). Deportees such as Karim or Salif were far from conforming to the obvious expectations of returning "successfully" and fulfilling the role of the adult son by taking care of the family. Worse than that, one may be left debased, traumatized, and with one's honor and dignity impaired. Deportees often use *maloya* to describe their sensation of shame to which I gave a prominent place in my introduction to this study and my discussion of potential "failure." Salif speaks of "*la honte"* (see Chapter 4), the French translation of *maloya*. The Bambara expression *maloya*, usually translated as "shame," but also as being shy or embarrassed (Adama used the French equivalent – *c'est gênant*), is one of the most important principles in Mandé societies to indicate correct behavior (cf. Brand, 2001, p. 16). First of all, it has a socially preserving function and also a positive connotation. Moreover, *maloya* is sign of nobility (*hòrònw*) and separates free people from slaves, who are said

to have no shame (ibid.).18 Thus feeling shame is considered as something positive and status-enhancing. The shame returnees talk about as a threat to their sense of self is thus of an ambivalent and very particular kind. As a sentiment central to keeping society together, shame may prevent one from returning home to save not only one's face, but also the reputation of the entire family. As "the master emotion of everyday life" (Scheff, 2003, p. 256), shame is key to understanding social life and relations, although it may be only a minor threat to the (social) bond. Most importantly, though, anticipated shame is continuously present in almost all social interactions (ibid.), and this conception of shame fits in well here as, in Mandé, relationships are of primordial relevance for human being and personhood:

In Mandé, relations exist prior to the person: it is only by means of social ties that one can achieve personhood. An isolated individual does not have the slightest significance socially, and economically a life without social relations is not viable either: relations are important sources of information, resources and support (Brand, 2001, p. 14).

These norms and ideas of respectability and central relatedness in the conception of (masculine) personhood are hegemonic notions around which Mandé society is organized and to which it adheres. They imply a positive debt, in the sense of a "debt of life" (Latour, 2003, p. 186), or "family debt" (Mbembe, 2007, p. 28) toward one's close relations and the primordial and general reciprocity described before, not least as these norms help to constitute the social fabric and social cohesion. In the African context, one can speak of multiple forms of debt or "indebtedness" (Shipton, 2006) in social (as well as economic) relations, which signify something positive and productive, as will be shown.

Individual happiness and affluence, social harmony and the respect of others are thus only possible through compliance with socially prescribed roles (Brand, 2001, p. 134). Consequently, one can only be a respected and upright person in relation to and in the eyes of others (pp. 14f).19 Ideals of masculinity are usually determined by respect (*bonya*) and commonly established modes of joking (*senankuya)* between different social and ethnic groups, built on the assumption of an unchallenged authority. Money allows one to be a respected son, friend, and father. Against this background, the loss of money puts one in danger of serious disgrace

18 According to this belief, slaves would not be able to distinguish, and thus apply, the social rules of correct behavior established for the nobility, who preserve respect and their honor accordingly. Among themselves, however, slaves are able to display shame, which enables them also to discuss issues that may not be confronted by noblemen (Brand, 2001, p. 16 n 13).

19 Even if there are fewer situations considered shameful for a man than for a woman in Mandé, "the consequences of disgrace are said to be more serious to men than to women" (Brand, 2001, p. 18).

particularly as "a man": "one has not made it" (*"on a pas réussi")* refers to this hegemonic foil. In the end it was anxiety about not conforming to the expected role in others' eyes that drove Karim and others to stay away from their village in order to save face, a good name (*tògò nyuman*), and positive social recognition (cf. Steuer, 2012). Literature suggests this is tantamount to the fear of social death (Bredeloup, 2017; Lucht, 2017).20 All these conceptions merge in the expression *fa den sago* that may be applied to people after deportation. It means "the capacity of one's will, desire or aspiration is suspended or has stopped." In its social dimension this may have dramatic consequences. Broulaye, Salif 's neighbor, explained the meaning of money in supposed "failed" adventures as follows:

If you return without money, you may be called lazy (*fa den sago*). The idea is that you are not someone who fights, as if you do not have any ambitions anymore, as if you are an individual without heart. That means that you don't want to go there ("*là-bas"*) that you don't want to succeed.  That's what may be being said among the half-brothers or cousins: you don't want to get on; you don't want to work. You can't cope with possible difficulties. (Broulaye, 11-7-2015)

Laziness is a summarizing term for *fa den sago*. Underlying it is the idea of an incomplete person without heart and soul. At its center, *fa den sago* refers to the social dimension and relatedness of the person, and thus to the expectations attaching to a person's actions for the common good. As in Mandé relatedness comes prior to the person, questioning one's will to be active is questioning one's integrity as a good member of society. *Fa den sago* is made up of the Bambara expressions *fa den*, which literally translates as "child of the same father," but also means "jealousy" (as in the sense of *fadenya*); and *sago*, which means will and desire. Consequently, *fa den sago* signifies that the will of the father's children or, better, of his family, is not fulfilled. This intrinsically relates to the social expectations of migratory success as far as the kin are concerned being literally left unfulfilled by one's monetary loss through deportation. In fact, *fa den sago* is a narrative depiction of social death. It is against this background that Adama preferred his parents to think he was dead rather than stopping to try to find money, being embarrassed and unable to alleviate his parents' poverty; at the same time, it is to guard one's respect and sense of self. While away, many did not call their families to avoid telling them about their complicated situation.

Broulaye was surprisingly open in commenting on others' situations and positions after deportation. He had left for Libya to continue on to Europe, but had

20 Sylvie Bredeloup speaks of the "anguish of returning empty-handed," as the "anxiety of facing others and their views, of humiliating one's relatives because of one's failure" (Bredeloup, 2017, p. 147).

returned. Even if he could not prepare as he would have wished, he had been able to save some money. Most significantly, he decided to return of his own volition. The most important elements that contribute to a more successful reintegration seem to be retaining one's autonomy and dignity. So Broulaye seemed to speak from a place where he was not in danger of being accused of laziness or "failure." Karim, on the other hand, did not leave the family compound during one entire month: "I could not leave as I did not return with anything. … I was anxious. The people could not ask me for money as they knew that I had come with empty hands." Beyond the family, he feared the villagers' malicious talk. Everybody knew that he had come back penniless. Some people are reported to have been rejected by their communities (cf. Tounkara, 2013), but these need to be seen as extreme cases as mentioned above (see Chapter 1).

Even if Yakouba was able to partially prepare for and embed his return socially and financially, he went to the family hamlet some kilometers outside the village immediately after his return. He wanted to engage in some agricultural work, which "needed to be done immediately." At the same time, hamlets in the countryside are spaces out of sight of the extended family and other villagers and far from their observing eyes and talk. They provide a certain kind of privacy and autonomy, and thus the possibility of recovering from a state of disturbance after a deportation. For Karim, it was the people who were close to him socially, who helped him out of his desperation: "My friends visited me to chat. It was they who made me, little by little, go outside the family compound. From time to time, we went for a walk. After that, it also worked with the others." There seem to be different social dynamics at stake in getting on with the situation after deportation. The questions of social distance or proximity as well as who to trust and to rely on, all relate to kinship relations, friendship and importantly the broader village population, literally the eyes of the others. I will do a breakdown of them in the next section.

#### Ambivalent (intimate) relations post deportation

Karim and his brother were our hosts in the village. We were accommodated in the ample courtyard, placed very prominently, sleeping in the most modern house that Mamoutou had constructed. Karim's brother had climbed up the social ladder and become mayor in his home community. He was oftentimes away taking care of his family in Bamako or participating in meetings. Karim, Birama, and I spent a lot of time together. Unlike his brother, Karim was calm and reserved. He warmed up and became more open, particularly as his elder brother was absent. After his deportation, Karim was the formal head of the family ("*chef de la famille"; sòtigi*). Mamoutou was living in another region. Karim's father wished him to stay and take care of them. "I would have left again otherwise," he says. "My brother cannot

financially support his family [in Bamako] and back home." Karim signaled his responsibility and desire to contribute. By staying, he was able to guarantee the continuity of the family compound and farm. In the meantime, their father died, and Mamoutou became family head on his return as mayor. Importantly, Karim's deportation and financial loss apparently did not translate into a loss of status for the family. Both Karim and Salif became (interim) household heads. Still, Karim depended on others' financial support, including that of his elder brother.

Brothers are said to play a central role in hegemonic conceptions in Mandé. Through all the stages of migration and return, respondents reported that their brothers supported them by lending money, providing accommodation, and acting as a friend or a communicator with the rest of the family. Yet, as intimate family members, brothers may, in fact, have an ambivalent role. Salif 's neighbor Broulaye explained this specific relationship:

For example, certain elder brothers finance the journeys of their younger brothers. So, if the younger brothers don't succeed in entering [Europe], their elder brothers are upset. They can blame the little brothers for being lazy ("*fainéant*"). But that's not exactly it. Everybody has his destiny. Such accusations often make return migrants and *refoulés* see themselves as obliged to try to re-emigrate to be able to find the money to refund the money from the elder brother. On the other hand, others tell the *refoulés* that it's not that serious, and that the essential thing is to be in good health – so that they can still work to earn. (Broulaye, 11-7-2015)

Lack of success, again equated with laziness and justifying anger at the younger brother, who "failed" even though he had support, leaves the latter vulnerable to being pushed to set off again, financially indebted to the elder brother. Mamoutou, Karim's brother, may have been disappointed as well, but he received his brother openly and supported him while the latter recovered. According to Yakouba's mother's report and Salif, people are often simply relieved and grateful that the returnee has come back healthy and alive. Yakouba, though, was not very happy when the cousin he had funded to join him in Libya was also deported afterwards. This social space of negotiation is a good example of the difficulties inherent in "failed" adventures that potentially compromise the entire family. Still, the most important thing is that one survives as a person to go on and thereby contribute, the neighbor concludes. The returnee is obviously not socially dead in these cases. Moreover, in saying "that's not exactly it," Broulaye is referring to a widespread notion from cosmology and ultimate sense making: in the end, everything is part of one's destiny, which it is still possible to activate through one's commitment (see Chapter 7 for more on this topic).

Broulaye illustrated a specific relational ambivalence21 caused by the situation of the forced return. It relates to more general constructions of social relations, and Mandé conceptions in particular. Despite all "defeats" there is a sort of self-evident solidarity and support in intimate kin relations.While the individual family is existentially and economically impaired by the brother's, son's, or nephew's unexpected loss, the supposed intimate kin relations are obliged, and privileged, to offer loyalty and internal support to a certain extent (cf., e.g., Jackson, 2017, pp. 103ff). The rupture through deportation puts these hegemonic conceptions and intimate relations particularly to the test. Literature underlines that close social relations, intimacy, and money are uncertain (cf., e.g., Geschiere, 2013; Graeber, 2011; Parry & Bloch, 1989) and fraught with ambivalence (Jackson, 2017). While kinship may carry an "axiom of amity," according to Meyer Fortes, a Tallensi proverb suggests "familiarity is better than kinship" (1949), even if both may overlap substantially (cf. Jackson, 2017, pp. 131ff). Keith Hart (1988) concludes that it is easier to trust friends in economic relations than one's kin ("as friends are free," p. 189).22 In this uncertain terrain, "losing" money is in either case a tricky, and, above all, a morally loaded issue.

Brothers are constructed as playing antagonistic parts in polygynous families, in everyday life as well as in migration. This centers around the concepts of *fadenya* and *badenya* (cf., e.g., Bredeloup, 2017; Jackson, 2017; Gaibazzi, 2015a; Jónsson, 2007; Jansen, 1996; Bird & Kendall, 1980). *Fadenya*, literally translated as "rivalry, jealousy, and antagonism," is said to generate opposition among children with the same father but with different mothers, and particularly among brothers, driving young men to engage in heroic actions in order to stand out. The elder brother is usually placed higher in the family hierarchy. Jealousy is a strong tool of autonomy here. As already said, envy of others' successes and achievements is a primary motor for leaving. *Badenya*, by contrast, refers to children of the same mother (*ba*) and is a metaphor for harmony, more likely to stimulate people to accept their situation and the constraints imposed, for instance, by the authorities. These concepts are to be understood within the embedding context of the polygynous household, where co-wives have to compete for often scarce material resources and personal favors as well as specific blessings and care. These derive from the patrilineal line through the children and their father (cf. Jackson, 2017, pp. 146f). Thus, the social standing

21 According to Monika Palmberger (2019), the term "relational ambivalence" defines ambivalence"as a product of relationships individuals engage in"(p. 14). This fits well into the context under discussion, where people consider themselves not as having relationships but as being relationships. (See further Chapter 8).

22 Friends may not be directly affected, and reciprocity may be even more of an issue of negotiation. Marcel Mauss (1954) calls friends "the true locus of society" (Hart, 1986, p. 189). However, in a moment of crisis, friends may slip away more easily, while family members have a certain obligation to bond and belong (cf. Jackson, 2017, pp. 103f).

of the mother is intrinsically connected to the migratory success of the son, due to society's attachment to migration.23

From the perspective of *fadenya,* Karim left on an adventure in order to seek independence, manhood, and the capacity to contribute to the family vis-à-vis his elder brother. Mamoutou supported him to achieve this aim. Mandé discourse implies the younger brother has to leave the paternal compound in case of conflict and become autonomous. The younger brother is envisaged as returning successfully as a potentially violent stranger or hunter to replace the elder brother as the compound chief, when he needs support or replacement: the "hero is welcomed only on troubled days" (Jansen, 1996, p. 681, after Johnson, 1986, p. 42). Neither Karim nor Salif returned as a hero or successful adventurer. Contrariwise, it was again their elder brothers who had to help them out, thus reasserting the hierarchy between the brothers. Still, both were welcomed, not only as survivors of their adventures, but also economically for guaranteeing the continuity of the paternal compound. Formally, both had attained social adulthood many years before, but had to face up to their inability to participate in reciprocal exchange on every level. This created tensions within their financial and social expectations and relations. Both Salif and Karim complained about their economic constraints, and Karim led a humble life in comparison to his successful brother. Mamoutou took care of Karim and restored his morale even if the fact that they have different mothers, but the same father, would suggest they might compete according to *fadenya*. Even so, this may have added substantially to Karim's sensation of being left behind. Kinship seems to keep its promise of amity and care, by serving as refuge and savior (cf. also Wiedemann, 2018) – despite potential rivalries, the preservation of hierarchies as well as the ambivalence between obligations, (be)longing, and expectations (unfulfilled). Still, such situations remain precarious and need to be dealt with, particularly when it comes to the broader social and village context.

#### Revisiting the social order – talking or not talking

Everyday gossip and talking about other people is a constitutive part of everyday life in southern Mali, particularly in small-scale communities or defined groups (which may also include civil society, as described above). Many of the respondents spoke about having been mocked after their return, mockery being understood as some kind of by-product. Brahima faced substantial mistrust and alienation in the market place in Bamako (see Chapter 4). People did not know what he had been doing abroad, which gave them a reason for suspicion. "It is obvious who is a deportee,"

23 For example, if the son of one co-wife migrates, the other co-wife would do everything to enable her son to leave as well (cf. also Nyamnjoh, 2010, p. 134). An opposing discourse implies that the mother is left alone when the son departs.

said Salif 's neighbor Broulaye describing the situation. "People may even call out '*refoulé, refoulé'* in broad daylight and point a finger at you." He laughed about the open shaming as he talked. "And then they denounce your mother," he says pointing out the probably most crucial connection. An open acknowledgement of one's supposed "failure" may even reinforce the shame of returning empty-handed (Vermont, 2015), which is "aggravated by the public ridicule" (Kleist, 2017b, p. 184). This has to do not only with the (intimate) family; whether the broader community talks – either openly or behind one's back – or does not talk is central as well. Mockery can sometimes be directed against one's close family as well oneself, though, besides shaming, it may at the same time have a correcting and preserving function.

#### Gossiping and mothers' roles in the adventurer's success

According to George Paul Meiu, talking about the others mainly serves to determine what it means to be a good member of society: "gossip, rumoring and scandal are central modes for the production and alteration of belonging" (Meiu, 2017, p. 149).24 While on the one hand it is argued that gossip serves to preserve the "unity" of a group (cf. Gluckman, 1963) (which is in line with the preserving function of shame mentioned above), it is additionally "a way of dealing with emerging conflicts and contradictions and generating intimate alliances against oppressive political and economic hierarchy" (cf. Meiu, 2017, p. 149). Deportations, as we have already indicated, bring about substantial conflicts and contradictions in social worlds. Niko Besnier (2009) emphasizes that the real and substantial consequences of gossip for people should be considered as well as its power as a political tool. In this sense, gossip can actively reshape social worlds.25 It works like an "indirect dialogue" about norms, values, and thus existing hierarchies in a kind of "semi-public sphere" beyond the usual "face-to-face situation" (Pietilä, 2007). Sooner or later, a person or group that is gossiped about usually learns what is being said about

24 In George Meiu's examples of young rural Kenyan men (Morans) seasonally working as beach boys to become "young big [rich] men" through transactional sexual relationships with white western women, it is not financial loss but so-called "shortcut money" that causes villagers' malicious talk about the "evil" and transient nature of immoral earnings. But rather than simply insulting the young Morans, young women also use gossip to express their fascination with and desire for them, which can eventually lead to secret love affairs; a similar ambivalence is expressed by other young men in search of income opportunities and upward mobility, for whom the young Morans represent aspirational idols. While the young men are in one way emasculated through gossip, they become masculine in other ways by this practice (Meiu, 2017, pp. 148ff).

25 Besnier's (2009) illuminating study based on 40 years of field work on a small Pacific island shows that gossip has not just the abstract function of social control of morality but real consequences for people: gossip is shaped by sociocultural processes that involve the community as a whole; it forms part of hegemonic discourses and the opposition to them.

them. Besides its preserving function, gossip can thus effect change of behavior and "review the order of things" (cf. also Drotbohm, 2010, p. 54).26

"People's mocking should not be taken too seriously," said Broulaye explaining his amusement at people's reaction to a *refoulé's* return. His explanation comes as a surprise and might rather have indicated his own embarrassment vis-à-vis me with regard to such behavior: principally, joking relationships (*senankuya*) in Mandé allow mockery, accusations, and also harsh critique under the umbrella of mutual amusement and pre-established bonds. Such relationships can also consist in institutionalized social behavior to cope with forms of loss.27 But, it would be difficult to characterize mocking *refoulés* and gossiping about them as features of joking relationships. The latter are a specific institution in multi-hierarchical Mandé societies, creating a field free from rivalry by assigning specific joking partners (cf. Brand, 2001, pp. 16ff). Mocking and gossiping on the other hand are fully powerloaded, rather enforcing old hierarchies or generating new ones.

The most important role played by mothers is in the gossip of the village population or social circle after a deportation: as Broulaye reported above, "and the mother gets criticized too, yeah, yeah." Such resigned and seemingly careless acknowledgement of this everyday reality hints at a connection which needs to be carefully analyzed, primarily in order to understand the specific dynamics of gossip, talk, and silence in this context. Eventually, it is the mother, who is in danger of being blamed for the adventurer's breakdown, which could potentially imply his social death (*fa den sago*).   That's a frequent criticism here in the village.  Otherwise, it would engender conflict. In this way, social harmony can be preserved, he is convinced. Against this background, silence, non-communication, or limited communication appear strong tools to cope with the reactions to an unsuccessful return. "I did not say anything," "we did not talk about it" are frequently a part of narrations. Often,

26 Importantly, gossip is not only constitutive of the person who is gossiped about, but also of those who sit together and chat, as it creates a space of trust and "truthfulness" (Drotbohm, 2010, p. 54).

27 Michael Jackson depicts ritualized forms of mourning and grief, as having to do not only with the death of a person, but with losses of objects, homelands and ideals, enabling others to contemplate them together with the person immediately affected and thus to relieve them – through shared suffering – from the privatization of pain, and at the same time contribute to reconstituting the social order (Jackson, 2017, pp. 73ff).

there is one person of trust who can be spoken to intimately, a brother, as in the cases of Salif and Karim, an uncle, or a very close friend. While Karim was eventually led back into village life by his trusting friends, Salif remained silent: "Here? ... No…."  They will also say that the difficulties you had on your adventure or when you were deported, were the fault of your mother, because she did not obey her husband. That's why one does not talk about the difficulties of the journey. So, if you succeed you tell people, and if you don't succeed you say nothing.  (Salif, 11-1-2015)

Even if the people around him knew something of the trouble he had had, he would not spell it out openly. The moment Salif started to lament the difficulties he had experienced, he would be accused of being a liar, he reasoned – as if admitting "failure" would destroy the collective image of success and adventure. Instead of entering the quagmire of the village rumors, potentially damaging not only his own reputation, but, more importantly, that of his mother, Salif preferred to remain silent, if only to deprive them of any reason for calling him a liar. This was a measure taken to save face and maintain respect for himself and his mother. One AME staff member similarly admitted, "This suffering that you have been through, you cannot talk about it" (field notes, 10-28-2015). Salif never said anything to his mother himself. It was his brother who passed on some bits and pieces of information. The same applied to his first wife with whom he had already had five children before setting out on his journey. Both mother and wife had been greatly in favor of Salif 's quest for money. Fatoumata, his wife, smiles: "Yes, I was very happy, when he got back. But when I heard people speaking about the deaths at sea and that he suffered in prison, I did not like this at all." The villagers' gossip, based on hearsay, informed her about the circumstances of her husband's suffering abroad.

The background for such gossip is the primordial relevance of the relationship between mothers and children in Mandé. Not only do mothers evoke the profoundest feelings of respect, but a certain complicity is assumed between children and their mothers. Once grown-up, sons in a patrilocal and polygynous household are expected to take care of their mothers (Brand, 2001, p. 17), who brought them into the world and took care of them through every essential step in their lives. One's

28 Small rubber boat, see Chapter 1.

mother's social standing and blessing are considered the keys to personal success – in the adventure too, as revealed above. Similarly, in terms of *badenya*, they are relevant to the success of the community as well (p. 21). All this is condensed in the Bambara expression *bè bi ba bolo* that Salif referred to and that translates as "everyone is in the hands of their mother (*ba*)."29 It reflects the Mandé belief that gains as well as losses are related to and explained by one's mother's behavior, good or bad. The supposed strong bond between mother and son can have very negative repercussions on the outcome of a son's bid for success. According to Salif:

The moment you return, people say bad words about your mother. When anyone gets to Libya or Spain, people say that their mother is good, because her child has crossed the sea or the Sahara without dying. So if such a person returns, their mother is bad, that's what the people say. ...  (Salif, 11-1-2015)

Whatever kind of behavior the child displays, the mother is indirectly made responsible for it in everyday small talk, and her reputation suffers or improves by turns. If an adventurer is successful, it may even increase people's envy and jealousy. "Our life is difficult," is how Salif evaluated this moral economy relating to the migratory adventure with the mother at its social core, while my co-researcher Birama sat next to me and laughed, bitter and amused at the same time. Salif was describing a hegemonic discourse and everyday practice that I often encountered during my fieldwork: something an outsider might dismiss as mere superstition is the firm local belief of many and may involve severe consequences for the individuals concerned. Not obeying or disrespecting one's husband30 is considered grounds for severe reproach as it fundamentally undermines the husband's personhood. A refusal to have sexual intercourse would endanger social reproduction and thus the future of the family line, and can be a powerful tool for women, particularly in polygynous constellations. Broulaye remained vague and diplomatic regarding his opinion of mothers' bad faith, which eventually saved his face as well: "Well, I agree that the woman should respect her husband in the correct way; the children they will have will be blessed." Unlike his father, Karim's mother had severe difficulties in accepting her son's "failure": "That's because women love their children so much," he reasoned.31

29 In French : "*Chacun est dans les mains de sa mère*". Brand, e.g., notes that no one can "go beyond his mother" (2001, pp. 147f).

30 In Bambara: *fourou mousso mi tè à fourou tiè bognan or fourou mousso mi tè à fourou tiè kouman kan sabati*.

31 Tellingly, hardly anyone would acknowledge that his own mother had been the subject of gossip. If they admitted anything, it would only be having heard of someone's mother who was.

Women, notably as wives and mothers, are points of reference for various stories in gossip, but also for common beliefs and sayings.32 Not least, such beliefs should be understood as conveying an implicit fear of women, their existential and creative powers, particularly birth-giving women and their bodies (cf. Ba, 2015). These are part of discourses where women engage with occult powers associated with the bush ("*la brousse"*) as the domain of sorcery. In this vein, "misbehaving" women can be perceived as threats to the stability of the community (*badenya*) and the social order (Jansen, 1996, p. 680) that they are supposed to guarantee.33 In the end, gossip about an adventurer's mother can be seen as a measure to ensure the community's social integrity. Women become suspect at the moment of their son's unwanted and supposedly unsuccessful return. This clearly goes beyond Meiu's discussion of ambiguously successful Samburu men, where mothers are not mentioned any further for their role in everyday gossiping. The fact of mothers' constituting a central theme of everyday gossip under post-deportation conditions, underlines their centrality in the maintenance of social well-being and social order at least; they are highly admired and redoubtable at the same time.

#### The power of silence