Shifting perceptions of Europe and mobility within contemporary Senegal. An ethnographic and diachronic perspective

During the past years the European crisis in parallel with the increasing enforcement and externalization of border controls that EU countries have undertaken towards African countries (2002), have deeply shaped the way in which Europe and migration are perceived in African countries of emigration. The areas originally characterized by flows of out-migration, such as Senegal, are experiencing not only a modification in the pattern of mobility; we can also appreciate the degree of social diversification in the way "Europe" is viewed and talked about. The narratives about migrants as well as images about foreign countries and migration contexts often become metaphors for thinking about social and cultural changes, which characterize both the destination countries and the local context themselves (cfr. Gardner, 1995). Drawing from findings of some ethnographic research undertaken between 1997 and 2009 (Riccio 2005; Degli Uberti 2014), we will look at the experiences and narratives of different Senegalese migratory phenomena: the so-called Modou modou, who from internal became the prototype of the international migrants, and the narratives of "boat migrants" who set off for the Spanish archipelago of Canary Islands risking their lives to "gagner l'Europe". By looking at the everyday forms of interaction of migrants and their kin and broader social networks in a country of origin, the aim of this paper is to discuss how the social representation of Europe and the construction of an imaginary "Elsewhere" are deeply ambivalent and historically grounded. We aim to shed light on how the notion of migrant and Europe are multiple and ambivalent constructions, shaped by historical changes and deeply embedded within local context. We wish to discuss how mobility, history and imagination are intertwined concept in the understanding of the processes of social changes occurring between Europe and its borderlands and margins. The analysis of the social representation of "Senegalese migrants" in the country of origin will allow us to suggest how its ambivalence emerges not only by considering the historical dimension surrounding its definition, but also by the cultural shift surrounding the use of the term Européen in place of Modou modou. We will appreciate how the ambivalent character of the figure of Modou modou is tied to a specific perception of Europe, the "Elsewhere" where the migrants live. In this vein, we will turn our attention to the concept of El Dorado and to the meanings attached to the slogan "Barça ou Barsakh". The theme of "imaginary" and the Representations of the "Elsewhere" by non-Western people have emerged as peculiar fields of reflection to understand the processes of social and migratory mobility in the countries of origin. With this paper we wish to discuss how the "Elsewhere" and the "trajectories of imaginary" are constructed historically within a Senegalese local context. The adoption of an historical perspective to study the social representation of Europe "from outside", will allow us to retrace the individual and collective dynamics, the people's micro- and macro-level circumstances which inform a specific "culture "of migration" and the ambivalent perception about "Europe", calling into question its supposed stable notion. More specifically, by focusing on how culture and lifestyle inform mobility decisions, this work contributes to the study of the relationship between mobility and borders, problematizing the naive idea that Europe is collectively perceived as an homogeneous El Dorado. The ethnographic findings provide a grounded opportunity to show how imagination and the meaning of mobility play a role in the making and remaking of the notion of Europe, not exclusively as an undefined "Elsewhere". We suggest that the representation of Europe is rather linked to the subjective experiences of individuals and shifts according to social changes and with transformation of migration itself. We aim to shed light on how some criteria such as history, language and place, produce a specific sense of spatiality, which in turn contributes to the formation of the frontier between "here" and "there". The emotions and the gestures through which migrants and non-migrants think about migration and its real or imaginary destinations, assume a great importance: the different historical forms of migrant representation shed light not only on the social and political transformations of Senegal but also on the social representation of Europe: the "Elsewhere".