Looking for a Greener Pasture: Exploring the Narratives of Gambian Clandestine Migrants

Abstract: Uggla, Fredrika (2015). Looking for a Greener Pasture: Exploring the Narratives of Gambian Clandestine Migrants. Human Geography, advanced level, master thesis for master exam in Human Geography, 30 ECTS credits. Supervisors: Karen Haandrikman and Natasha Webster. Language: English. Clandestine migration from Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe is an increasing trend. In The Gambia, which is a relatively calm and stable country, young men dream about life in Europe and risk their lives in The Sahara with Europe as goal. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the expectations about life in Europe, and also, why it is mainly young men who become clandestine migrants. The research questions are: 1) how are narratives about clandestine migration and Europe constructed among young men in The Gambia? 2) What ideas about Europe are produced and reproduced in these narratives? And 3) Why is it, in the Gambian context, mainly young men who become clandestine migrants? Fieldwork and interviews was carried out in The Gambia. The study takes a narrative approach that acknowledges agency as well as structure. This is important because it shows how the narratives builds on discursive practice, and are connected to a broader social context. Thus, this study gives voice to the clandestine and highlights individual experiences. The analysis draws on discourse analysis, in combination with postcolonial and gender theory, and shows how clandestine migration is the result of primarily two discursive practices. First the ideas about Europe and The Gambia, represented as binary oppositions building on colonial stories about place, and second the local, gendered idea of ‘a successful son’.