Documenting the Migration Journey: African Kinship Dynamics in Europe

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CHAPTERS 

[00:07:55]: How state exclusion drives kinship networks among African migrants 

[00:11:46]: How biometric controls changed documentation practices 

[00:14:35]: How the Netherlands shifted migration control onto employers 

[00:18:50]: Why borrowing documents within kinship networks creates its own risks 

[00:21:04]: How a Ghanaian farming tradition became a term for document lending in Europe 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:03.09] 

Hi. Welcome back to the World of Migration, a podcast from the Migration Policy Institute that delves into interesting topics on immigration, immigrant integration and humanitarian protection with some of the world big thinkers and policymakers. My name is Camille Le Coz and I'm your host today and an Associate Director at the Migration Policy Institute Europe. And in this episode we'll take a dive into documentation and kinship to topics that may not seem to be related and yet there are some fascinating linkages that we'll be discussing today, and I'm delighted to be joined by Apostolos Andrikopoulos to discuss all of this issue. Apostolos is a Marie Curie Global Fellow at Harvard University and the University of Amsterdam. He recently published his book Argonauts of West Africa: Unauthorized Migration and Kinship Dynamic Interchanging Europe with the University of Chicago Press. His books provide an ethnographic exploration of how unauthorized migrants in Europe turn to kinship to address challenges related to their legal status. For those interested in the question of undocumented migration, this book offers a fresh and original perspective by highlighting the stories of migrants in their struggle and showing the pivotal role of kinship in unexpected context, such as the way migrants acquire documents that enable them to travel, work and settle in Europe.

[00:01:30.03] 

Apostolos, welcome. I'd like to begin our discussion by addressing a central theme of your book and that's how certain migrants use identity documents that either belong to other lookalike migrants or have been made by brokers and other intermediaries. From the state point of view, these actions are typically referred to as identity fraud. But you chose not to employ this concept, this term in your book, and I was wondering if you could elaborate on your reason for this choice. I know you spend a lot of time with migrants lacking legal status in the countries of residence and that they've been sharing their perspective and thought on documentation.

[00:02:11.14] 

Yes, sure. Actually, there are several reasons for this. There are the most important one that I wanted to understand these practices from the migrants point of view. If I would adopt identity fraud as an analytic term, then I would approach these practices through the lens of the state. And then this means that my attention would be directed to to issues that for the state are prioritized as important. And these are first, where these documents are produced, whether they are produced by state authorities or not, and second, whether the holders of these documents are the legitimate holders of these documents according to the state's assessment.

[00:03:08.09] 

And I think that leads also to the way that the document, the way migrants look at this document is a little bit through a different lens and through the one, this, this notion of effectiveness. And that's also, you know, how access to documentation shape one migratory journey. And precisely in your book, you talk about the trajectory of Jason, with a man who's left Ghana in the mid-90s. And I was hoping you could tell us about his journey and the different identities that he's taken to get. To get where he wanted to go.

[00:03:42.10] 

Yeah, actually, for migrants, what makes documents valuable is their effectiveness, so whether they can enable them to travel and to find work in Europe or elsewhere. So this decision not to use identity fraud as an analytic term is actually an outcome of a discussion that I had with Jason, the person that, that you mentioned. For our listeners, Jason is a man from Ghana who has traveled through many countries, really, really many countries, until he, in order to travel to what he said, to an advanced country, and he used more than 10 identities and, and more of six different nationalities.

[00:04:40.08] 

So you said he started in Ghana and then where did he go from there and which one of these identity.

[00:04:47.11] 

Yeah. So his journey is actually quite complex. First he started from Ghana, he traveled to Zimbabwe. From Zimbabwe he crossed the border to South Africa. From South Africa he attempted to travel to the UK but that was unsuccessful. From South Africa he traveled to Malaysia. From Malaysia he attempted to travel to Canada, but that was unsuccessful. He was deported back to South Africa. And after a few years of staying in South Africa and he traveled to East Africa, to Tanzania. And from Tanzania he traveled to, he finally managed to travel to Europe.

[00:05:36.12] 

And through all these different legs, these many legs of his journey, what type of documentation was he using?

[00:05:45.07] 

Yeah, well, he was using passports of different nationalities, passports that he got from intermediaries, from brokers. Sometimes this passport enabled him to travel most of the times actually, and sometimes not. Such as, as I mentioned, like his attempt to travel to, to the UK or his attempt to travel to, to Canada. But here I, I want also to stress that his very first travel experience was, was traveling with his own passport with his Ghanaian passport from Ghana to Zimbabwe. And he was treated with suspicion and doubt when he arrived in Zimbabwe and he was not... And the immigration officer doubted whether his Ghanaian passport actually belonged to him. So he had to bribe the officer in order to allow him entry in the country.

[00:06:57.01] 

That really shows all the ambiguities on documentation and how you constantly, in different border posting, you constantly try to assess whether these are the right document, these are legal and are with the right person. I also want to move to the concept of kinship, which is really another key dimension that you explore in your research. Because for some European policymakers or their stakeholders, (they) tend to see kinship in Africa as traditional form of organizing society. And it also strikes me that working with development agencies, how we always tend to refer to communities when it comes to people living in a non-Western context, like program benefit local communities. Whereas your research has precisely shown how actually obstacles to mobility have triggered new form of kinship. Could you tell us more about this?

[00:07:55.16] 

Yeah, actually this is a very well-rooted assumption that African societies are kinship oriented. Always we say that in contrast, or always this is said in contrast with Euro/American societies that are seen as individualistic. And actually that was the reason that in the beginning I did not want to study kinship because I was afraid that I would reproduce the same assumption when I was studying with African migrants and then I was focusing on their kinship practices. This assumption is that in societies with no state organization or with weak state organization, people have to rely on their social relations to access certain resources. And when the state comes with citizenship, that citizenship ensures an equal treatment. The assumption is that people in a way become emancipated, get emancipated from kinship, from their reliance on social relations. But actually,

[00:09:17.22] 

But it's a bit more complicated.

[00:09:20.01] 

Exactly. Yeah. Actually that was my first observation, was that kinship was becoming important or was important not in the absence of the state for African migrants, but due to the violence that they faced by the state, due to the exclusion that they faced by the state. Citizenship is. Is not about equality. It is also about exclusion. It is as much about exclusion as it is about inclusion. And yeah, in my book actually, I explore how kinship becomes relevant, how kinship becomes important. These moments that people want to travel and they cannot travel. They want to work and then they do not have the right to work. And how in this context, they turn to kinship relations for assistance.

[00:10:27.05] 

And I think there's another key issue to think about. I think when we think about this relationship to kinship, to documentation is when migrants travel under another identity and may lose their life during their journey. What happened?

[00:10:45.10] 

Yeah, actually this is like a very... Yeah, very sudden, difficult. A difficult situation. I mentioned already the story of Jason. So I think it is clear that migrants may take very intricate trajectories. They may pass through so many different countries and they may have like even like unexpected trajectories. They may travel to countries that was not originally meant to travel. Very often their family members in their countries of origin are not even aware about these very complex routes. And when they travel without documents and if something, something happens on the way, like if they lose their life, then it becomes very difficult to. It becomes very difficult to be traced.

[00:11:46.12] 

Yeah, and I will add, I think some of these routes have also become even more complicated because Jason's story we said dates from, from the 90s and now we've seen more technology, more border management procedures that, that have made it, especially with the systematization of biometric border control, it even more difficult to borrow one's identity. From your previous research, to what extent has this changed practices in relation to documentation and also the risk that migrants have to take?

[00:12:20.19] 

Yeah, no, certainly like the introduction of biometric techniques in immigration control has changed a lot. It is now much more difficult for someone to, for a migrant to use the identity documents of another lookalike person. Nevertheless, not impossible. But I would say that this biometric, that biometric identification has neither replaced, not erased the social person, the person as a social being remains still at the center of immigration control. So the way that migrants establish relations to access documents to a certain extent remains similar. So even if they would not borrow the documents of another person, they may still create a new subjectivity. They may use other documents, like for example, a counterfeit birth certificate to obtain a passport under a different name or with a different age or a visa by using like an inflated bank statement or a diploma.

[00:13:55.15] 

And precisely on that, because we've talked about this migration journeys, and I'd now like to turn to what happened to migrants who don't have legal status when they get to Europe and where they try to find a job. In some countries, like in the United States or in France, we often talk about migrants working under alias without employers knowing or even trying to know. There were recently a few stories in France about migrant workers who've been borrowing identity paper to work in all the construction site ahead of the Olympic Games. But in the Netherlands, you explained that this practice has actually declined. What has happened?

[00:14:35.23] 

Yeah, well, if you would ask this question to Dutch immigration authorities, probably the answer you will get is that the practice declined after 2005 when the Dutch government introduced a quite hefty fine on employers who employed unauthorized migrant workers.

[00:15:05.19] 

It's moving the pressure, it's moving the control towards the employers themselves.

[00:15:11.11] 

Yeah, exactly. In a way you can say that it privatizes migration control to a certain extent that employers become in charge of operating migration control. And I think that the question that we need to ask here is in whose interest they operate migration control. So in, in the Dutch case, like the cases of people, of workers using someone else identity documents has changed. And so, as I said, like IND may interpret that as a success of shifting the responsibility to employers, but we need also to take into consideration that this practice, the practice of working under someone else's documents, proliferated in a period where the Dutch economy was growing, where more workers were needed. This growth of the Dutch economy has been halted, especially after 2009, after the global financial crisis. And furthermore, there is, after 2007, there is an increasing presence of eastern European migrant workers who are European citizens and they have full employment rights.

[00:16:52.22] 

But then I have a question because all of these migrants were still there. And so if they were not working under alias, how did they manage to find employment in the Netherlands?

[00:17:05.01] 

You mean about African migrants who were previously working under.

[00:17:10.06] 

Yeah, exactly. Because they were still there and I assume more people were still coming, despite the difference in the economy.

[00:17:17.23] 

Yeah. Now, to a significant extent, they have been displaced by eastern and southern European migrant workers. So certainly they face more difficulties to earn their living. It is much more difficult. They feel more the pressure of finding other ways of getting legalized. Some of them, for example, if they are already in relationships, they may feel like the pressure of getting married in order to get papers and then to find work and earn their living. And also there is a segment of, of those unauthorized migrants who engage in criminal activities for which we do not need identity documents, like for example, small scale drug trade. But I'm truly lacking more detailed information

[00:18:29.13] 

about this and I want to go back a little bit on the notion of kinship and also relationship, because you show in your book that this relationship around documentation are extremely complex. Like this is about solidarity, support, network within diaspora groups. But it's not only about that or it's not always about that.

[00:18:50.23] 

Yeah, sure, like using the documents of another person entails dangers and risks. And often migrants are aware of these risks. But there are always unanticipated consequences. So for example, there are very often disputes about the payment. Or like, how can you be sure that when you work someone under someone else name, that means that your salary is paid to the account of that person? How can you be sure that you will receive your salary or that great percentage?

[00:19:32.23] 

And a person might also be concerned to lend the identity document, even if they're a relative?

[00:19:41.02] 

Yeah, well, social proximity does not necessarily provide security. That is what some migrants may have believed in the beginning, that they thought that when they use documents from persons who are close to them, that would help them to avoid certain problems and challenges. But this is not often the case. And also when, when there are such problems, like for example, arguments about how they divide, how they divide the salary, or doubts about how the documents are used by the unauthorized migrant worker, that can also have effect on the pre existing relationship. So it's not only. Yeah, it can make things worse also.

[00:20:42.11] 

So it's not that simple. Yeah, it comes with a lot of potential complication. And I thought there was a concept that you use in your book that was very interesting. It's this notion of abusa. Can you tell us to what that refers to historically and how it came to be relevant in the Dutch context where you were conducting your research?

[00:21:04.15] 

Yeah, well, abusa actually is a twi word. A word. It's a language that is spoken in, in Ghana. And it refers literally, it remember, means in three parts. And it is a term that is associated with a very popular crop sharing arrangement in Ghana that is common, that is especially common in the cultivation of cocoa. And many migrants, many Ghanaian migrants in Europe actually originate from these regions, from cocoa producing regions in Ghana. So this crop sharing arrangement is that landowners give their land to farm workers. Usually these are migrant farm workers who take full responsibility of the cultivation of cocoa and in exchange they provide the landowners with one third of the production. So instead of rent or instead of financial remuneration, there is a kind of payment of one third of the production.

[00:22:26.14] 

And so in the Dutch context, what did it came to to mean?

[00:22:30.24] 

Yeah, so this word, this term in the Netherlands, but also in other European countries came to describe the practice of loaning of identity documents. And perhaps here an explanation for that is that the common arrangement is that one third of of the salary earned goes to the person who, to whom the document belongs to. So usually the salary is divided in three parts and two parts go to the person who has actually worked for that money on the work. Yeah, to the unauthorized migrant worker. And one third goes to the person who owns the document.

[00:23:24.23] 

That's fascinating. And now I want to move to a very sensitive topic which is the one of return. We often hear from policymaker that their objective is to increase the return rates. And in your book you precisely mentioned several case of unauthorized migrants who were arrested by authority and subsequently had to forcibly return to their country of origin. And I was wondering how has their return been perceived, especially in the context of West Africa? And did you get a sense that this discourage others from trying to pursue similar migration routes and methods in a way?

[00:24:06.23] 

I wouldn't say that it discourages others from pursuing migration projects or from wanting to migrate to Europe. Actually, how someone returns, like from the, from the perspective of the country of origin, how someone returns, whether someone is deported or not is not so much relevant. What is relevant is whether someone returns empty-handed or not and whether when someone returns, has, has already made some savings, whether this person, when returns to the country of origin, to Ghana, let's take that example. Whether this person is in a capacity to, to redistribute this, this wealth.

[00:24:58.09] 

A bit like in the case of Jason, right?

[00:25:00.08] 

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But there are also many, many others and even people who, who did not manage to have savings. Usually when, when they returned to the country of origin, they return with knowledge and they return also with social capital, with social networks that are also important for, for establishing themselves. For, for example, like establishing a company that would engage in transnational trade. You know, to give you, to give you an example. Of course there are not all of those success stories, but I'm saying that deportation does not, that does not necessarily mean shame, does not necessarily mean a negative example for others.

[00:25:55.10] 

Exactly. It's a much more nuanced picture that I think the one that is sometimes conveyed. But I still think what we've seen both in the migration journey and when people are staying in Europe using identity, even if those are lended by relative, we're still seeing that migrants face many vulnerability, many issues. And so to conclude, I'd like us to think a bit about how the situation could be managed differently.

[00:26:28.13] 

Yeah, well, that's a difficult question.

[00:26:31.22] 

I'm sorry.

[00:26:34.21] 

Yeah. I would say that especially for those who design migration policies, it is important to realize that the state is only one of, of the authorities of the entities that regulates mobility. The state has the capacity to, to determine what is a legal and illegal form of migration.

[00:27:07.08] 

But it's just one dimension.

[00:27:08.24] 

Exactly. As you say, there are also other regulatory authorities of mobility, such as the family or kinship more generally under market. And all these entities have their own, their own considerations in how they regulate mobility.

[00:27:31.10] 

A last point is one area you've also been thinking about is how assuming a different identity for extended period of time can have long term effect on a person.

[00:27:44.23] 

Yeah. And this is not only when someone uses an identity, a certain identity for an extended period. As I said, this is a practice that has unpredictable consequences. And here I can think of the story of one of my research participants, a Nigerian woman who when she arrived in Amsterdam, she started working for a very brief period in a cleaning company under the name of, of a Ghanaian woman. And in that company through, through her work in that company, she managed to find people who were interested in, in hiring her to clean their, their private homes.

[00:28:36.05] 

Yeah.

[00:28:36.23] 

So this is what she started doing. But these people met her through that

[00:28:41.24] 

formal job-that identity.

[00:28:43.17] 

Yes. And actually, you know how this, how, how it works in that profession, that it works with referrals that you find new your clients through the recommendations of, of another one. So even though that this woman has been illegalized, she's still known in Amsterdam, at least among, like, among her clients, as a Ghanaian woman with her Ghanaian name. And it is already like 20 years that she works under that name because

[00:29:19.12] 

it's like the trust is associated to that identity that she's been working under for so many years.

[00:29:25.15] 

Exactly. Yeah. And when you have been introduced to someone as a Ghanaian woman, then you have to stick with that and then you have to continue with this.

[00:29:39.23] 

Well, thank you. Thank you Apostolos. This has been fascinating. And thank you for tuning in to another episode of Word of Migration. If you enjoyed this conversation, please check out other episodes. You can find Word of Migration wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please leave us a review. You can find all the episodes for this and other MPI podcast at MPI website migrationpolicy.org/podcast this episode was produced by Yoseph Hamid and made possible with help from Lisa Dixon and editorial input from Michelle Mittelstadt. Our theme music is called Bright Idea by Geographer. I'm Camille Le Coz and thank you again for listening and see you next time.