Ida Marie Savio Vammen defends her PhD thesis at the Department of Anthropology

Candidate
Ida Marie Savio Vammen

Title
“THE MADNESS OF MIGRATION An Ethnographic Account of Senegalese Migrants’ Mobility and Lives in Buenos Aires“.  A copy of the the dissertation is available for reading at the department, please contact Vicki Antosz, Department of Anthropology, room 16.1.50.

Time and venue
14 March 2018 at 14:00. University of Copenhagen, Centre for Health and Society, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 Copenhagen K, Room 15.3.01.Kindly note that the defence will start precisely at the announced time.The Department of Anthropology will host a reception after the defence in room 33.1.19.

Assessment Committee

• Professor Karen Fog Olwig, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen (chair)
• Associate Professor Bruno Riccio University of Bologna, Italy
• Associate Professor Ruben Andersson University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Abstract
The Madness of Migration An Ethnographic Account of Senegalese Migrants’ Mobility and Lives in Buenos Aires This thesis sheds new empirical light on a recent case of migration from Senegal to Argentina, by exploring the lives and mobility practises of Senegalese men and women who seek new terrains for social becoming in Argentina. Building on nine months of fieldwork in Argentina and Senegal, it shows how increasingly restricted European migration management regimes and the economic recession, have limited the possibilities for successful migration to Europe. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Argentina has emerged as a destination for Senegalese migrants, especially since the mid-2000s. When the opportunities to enter Europe are reduced, it seems that hope for a better future is redirected towards new destinations and emerging economies in the Global South. The central argument of the thesis is that the lives and mobility of Senegalese migrants are shaped by different intersecting and multi-scalar politics of mobility. To locate these politics and show how they affect the migrants in their movement from Senegal to Argentina, particular emphasis is put on how mobility is produced, channeled and experienced, and where the migrants’ trajectory encounters friction. The thesis is structured as a journey from Senegal to Argentina – a journey through the different politics of mobility that migrants face in their most intimate family relations, when they run up against national borders, and in their everyday struggle to make ends meet in Buenos Aires.