Mapping hidden journeys of Gambian migration and return

Abstract

Countering the focus on crisis and irregularity that frames dominant representations of African migration to Europe, this article explores Gambian migrant women’s journeys of return. It is argued that Gambian women returnees’ financial resources, levels of education, kinship relations and social networks have positioned them in such a way that they can benefit from the opportunities and possibilities in The Gambia, thereby influencing their decisions to return. Significantly, their positions have helped them to negotiate and, in some instances, challenge gendered expectations and relations in their experiences on return. Further, the exchange of knowledge and their transnational networks and connections place the global South and the global North as co-constitutive elements in the development of their work and their gendered subjectivities. As such, I focus on the analytical purchase that the concept of return affords, as well as its political possibilities. The article contributes to existing scholarship on migration by highlighting the importance of returnees’ multiple subjectivities in both their decisions to return and their experiences on return. In addition, I foreground the contributions that returnees make to the places to which they have migrated, thereby challenging representations of African migrants as deficient and of Africa as a place of absence.

Résumé

En réplique à l’attention portée sur la crise et à l’irrégularité qui définit le cadre des représentations dominantes de la migration africaine vers l’Europe, cet article explore le voyage de retour effectué par des migrantes gambiennes. Il soutient que les ressources financières, le niveau d’éducation, les relations de parenté et les réseaux sociaux des migrantes gambiennes de retour les ont mises en position de pouvoir bénéficier des opportunités et des possibilités présentes en Gambie, et ont par là-même influencé leur décision de rentrer au pays. De façon significative, leur position les a aidées à négocier et, dans certains cas, à remettre en cause les attentes et les relations genrées dans leurs expériences du retour. De plus, l’échange de connaissances, ainsi que les réseaux et les liens transnationaux, font du Sud global et du Nord global des éléments co-constitutifs du développement de leur travail et de leur subjectivité et de genre. De ce fait, l’auteur s’intéresse à la prise analytique qu’offre le concept du retour, ainsi qu’à ses possibilités politiques. Cet article contribue à la recherche existante sur la migration en soulignant l’importance des multiples subjectivités des migrantes de retour, tant dans leur décision de retourner que dans leurs expériences du retour. De plus, l’auteur met en avant les contributions des migrantes de retour aux lieux vers lesquels elles ont émigré, remettant en cause par là-même les représentations des migrants africains comme déficients et de l’Afrique comme lieu d’absence.

Resumo

Contrariando o enfoque na crise e na irregularidade que enquadra as representações dominantes da migração africana para a Europa, este artigo explora os percursos de regresso das mulheres migrantes da Gâmbia. Argumenta-se que os recursos financeiros, níveis de educação, as relações de parentesco e redes sociais das mulheres gambianas retornadas as posicionaram de forma a poderem beneficiar das oportunidades e possibilidades na Gâmbia, influenciando assim as suas decisões de regresso. Significativamente, as suas posições ajudaram-nas a negociar e, em alguns casos, a desafiar as expectativas e relações de género nas suas experiências de regresso. Além disso, a troca de conhecimentos e as suas redes e ligações transnacionais colocam o Sul global e o Norte global como elementos co-constitutivos no desenvolvimento do seu trabalho e das suas subjectividades de género. Como tal, concentro-me na aquisição analítica que o conceito de retorno proporciona, bem como nas suas possibilidades políticas. O artigo contribui para os estudos existentes sobre migração ao realçar a importância das múltiplas subjectividades dos retornados, tanto nas suas decisões de regressar como nas suas experiências de regresso. Além disso, coloco em primeiro plano as contribuições que os retornados dão aos locais para onde migraram, desafiando assim as representações dos migrantes africanos como sendo incapazes e da África como um lugar de ausência.

The unending reverse migrations between multiple geographic locations is a fascinating Atlantic Diaspora story, but it has been obscured by the existing single-dimensional paradigm and literature that places these multiple levels of reverse migrations on the margins. (Essien 2014: 23)

Historian Kwame Essien highlights the historic marginalization of scholarship on reverse migrations within the context of the West African Atlantic diaspora. Despite the growing body of literature on return, there is still relatively little research on West African return migration.

In 2018, I returned to The Gambia, having lived and carried out research there since the mid-1990s, to undertake research on Gambian return migration with a focus on women who, having spent several years in Europe and/or North America, had chosen to return to live in The Gambia. These willing ‘returnees’ can be characterized as a ‘brain drain’ elite (Ifekwunigwe 2013: 219), highly skilled professionals and/or ‘adventurers seeking to fulfil a personal ambition’ (Bredeloup 2013: 170). They can be distinguished from ‘forced’ returnees, unskilled worker migrants and/or those who migrate for ‘survival’ (Ifekwunigwe 2013: 219).

With respect to those who migrate for ‘survival’, there are growing accounts of treacherous Mediterranean crossings in which scores of Gambians have lost their lives attempting to travel to Europe on ‘the back way’, a route that entails travel through Senegal, Mali, Libya and across the Mediterranean to Europe; those who spend time waiting for an opportunity to travel and are rendered immobile while they do so (Gaibazzi 2015); and those who are forced to return or do so through ‘assisted voluntary’ return programmes in which migrants receive financial support to return ‘home’ (Battistella 2018). It is crucial that their experiences and accounts are mapped and documented. However, I maintain that a focus on ‘irregular’ migrants, and those who migrate for survival, has been privileged at the expense of research on other types of migrants, many of whom migrate for education, work and personal ambition, and who engage in return migration (cf. Cole and Groes 2016: 5). Indeed, we know very little about the experiences of ‘well-educated, highly skilled African migrants, especially women’ (Wong 2014: 438; Ammassari 2004: 136).

Crucially, such an unbalanced focus highlights ‘the epistemic privilege of the Global North in the geopolitics of knowledge production’ (Mignolo 2002), where research and media coverage reflect particular funding priorities and political agendas (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 2020: 2). Within this context, research on those who migrate for ‘survival’ and/or undertake ‘irregular’ migration – migrants who are largely gendered male – is critical to the production of policy and legislation that inform the management of what has been termed a ‘migration crisis’ (Dennis 2019).

In an attempt to counter the normative language of crisis associated with African migration, and to destabilize its dominant representations, I present three cases of Gambian women returnees who, having originally migrated to Europe and in some cases remigrated for education or work or as asylum seekers escaping Yahya Jammeh’s regime, have returned to live in The Gambia. Migration and return have been key to the development of their work as they have accumulated educational qualifications, work experience and networks in The Gambia, Britain, the USA and elsewhere.¹

Although frequently framed as a failing economy, The Gambia can also be characterized as a place of opportunity and possibilities (cf. Simone 2011), particularly for those with educational qualifications, social status, networks and financial resources. Much of the literature on return frames outward migration as an achievement and return as a failure (see, for example, Jedlowski 2016: 102). Yet, in its focus on those who migrate for survival and whose families are dependent on their remittances, this literature fails to attend to the experiences of returnees who have access to financial resources, have established transnational and local networks, possess social status, and or occupy a different class position. Further, their decisions to return contradict the claim that women ‘are more reluctant to return than men’ because of gender inequality, limited work opportunities and increased dependence on their husbands in their home countries (King and Lulle 2022: 57). On the contrary, my interlocuters’ preference was to return (cf. Wong 2014: 439). It is argued that their financial resources, levels of education, kinship relations and social networks have positioned them in such a way as to benefit from the opportunities and possibilities in The Gambia, thereby influencing their decisions to return. Indeed, their positions have helped them to negotiate, and in some instances challenge, gendered expectations and relations in their experiences on return. Yet, negotiation may also entail a willingness to comply with marital obligations and kinship expectations. At the same time, they have followed innovative and creative paths in reimagining their careers in the arts, media, finance and trade.

A focus on gender, social status, class, wealth, kinship relations and transnational networks is crucial in mapping the varied and nuanced experiences of Gambian women returnees and understanding the gendered expectations and constraints that they face. Further, the exchange of knowledge and their transnational networks and connections place the global South and the global North as ‘co-constitutive elements’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012: 116) in the development of their work and their gendered subjectivities. On a structural level, an emphasis on co-constitution foregrounds the significance of long historical transnational practices and regional connections and networks between The Gambia, the global South, and Britain, the global North.²

In what follows, I present three cases in order to provide a detailed, albeit incomplete, account of Gambian women returnees’ migratory pathways and work trajectories. As privileged professionals, their experiences are relatively unique in the Gambian context. Although I focus on women returnees, I also interviewed a number of men in order to contextualize the women’s accounts and in recognition of gender as a relational construct rooted in relations of power and inequality. Heeding the need to privilege Africans as autonomous subjects (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018), I focused on their experiences and choices in relation to migration and return (cf. Cole and Groes 2016: 2), moving away from accounts of how Gambian migrants are constructed, defined and controlled by others. At the same time, I seek to convey what Zimbabwean writer Novuyo Rosa Tshuma (cited in Pilling 2021) calls ‘a sense of quiet lives being lived alongside a loud and brutal sweep of history’.

In what follows, I position my argument in relation to relevant scholarship on return, and on gender and migration. I then provide a brief overview of migration in The Gambia. After presenting the three returnees’ accounts, I discuss their experiences in relation to three themes: migration and return; building careers and negotiating gendered expectations; and transnational flows and the exchange of knowledge. I conclude with a discussion of the use of ‘return’ (muru or sayi in Mandinka) as an analytical device to highlight longstanding transnational connections between The Gambia and Britain.

Return

We can see return as speaking to an array of mobilities ranging from willing return to forced return, ‘imagined and provisional return’, which may consist of holidays (King and Christou 2011: 452), and failed attempts to return (Jedlowski 2016). Many returnees have their journeys interrupted and/or engage in circular migration. Indeed, the notion of return becomes problematic in ‘a world of multidirectional’ mobility (Myambo 2017: 264), where return and ‘sustained transnational mobility’ become one and the same (Carling and Erdal 2014: 2). Much of the interdisciplinary literature on contemporary accounts of return focuses on the legal status of returnees, motivations to return – including, but not limited to, the degree of integration in the host country – engagement with the country of origin, and remittances and transnational practices (see, for example, Ammassari 2004; Black and King 2004; Carling and Erdal 2014).³ In research on Cape Verdean returnees, Carling (2004: 113) highlights the importance of seeing ‘return within the broader context of transnationalism and transnational practices’ (e.g. remittances and house building). Grillo and Riccio (2004: 102) examine the development and intercultural initiatives of Senegalese ‘transmigrants’, those who try to live their lives ‘across borders’ in Italy, thereby foregrounding the importance of transnational networks and connections. Similarly, Sinatti (2011: 154) highlights practices of ‘unsettled return’ among Senegalese migrants who are forced to lead transnational lives as an income-generation strategy.

Much of the research on the lived experiences of returnees to sub-Saharan Africa focuses on integration and/or the contribution of their work to development (see, for example, Sinatti 2019; Ammassari 2004; Black and King 2004; Carling 2004). Such a focus serves as a counterbalance to the literature on forced return. Many of the chapters in Akesson and Baaz’s (2015) edited collection on return provide rich accounts of African returnees’ work experiences, their approaches to work and influence on existing working practices, the development of new business ventures, community expectations and the integration of returnees. Significantly, they take a critical look at the migration/development nexus in which African returnees are frequently framed as ‘the new developers’ and ‘agents of development’ by European and African states alike. Unsurprisingly, most returnees are unaware of state programmes that facilitate and actively encourage return (Kleist and Vammen 2012). Indeed, most migrate and return in order to improve their work prospects and their lives and/or those of their families, as is the case with my interlocuters. Although they contribute to Gambian society and the economy, they do not necessarily see themselves as ‘agents of development’ (Akesson and Baaz 2015: 9). Similarly, from the perspective of European policymakers, return is as much about migration reduction and management as it is about African development (Cassarino 2004).

In casting returnees as ‘agents of development’, there is an assumption that the various types of capital they possess stem solely from their experiences in Europe, thereby negating the capital they possessed before moving to Europe (Akesson and Baaz 2015: 2). Here, following ‘Eurocentric colonial imageries’ and the historicist assumptions that inform the business of development, Africa is represented as a place of absence and scarcity (ibid.: 7). In critiquing such representations, I examine Gambian returnees’ transnational networks and the exchange of knowledge, highlighting the contributions that they make to the places to which they have migrated, as well as to their home countries (cf. Sinatti 2019: 610). Indeed, their transnational practices reflect various types of global or cross-border connections, relationships, ‘patterns of exchange’ (Vertovec 2001) and social networks (Cassarino 2004). In this sense, I focus on the analytical purchase that the concept of return affords, as well as its political possibilities. I use ‘return’, in part, as a heuristic device to map these possibilities, a point to which I return in my discussion of the three cases.

Gender, migration and return

There is limited literature on gender, migration and return (King and Lulle 2022: 53). Although it is important not to conflate gender with women and to focus on men and other gendered identities, migration in the West African region and internationally has previously been depicted as a male phenomenon with little attention paid to independent female migration. Indeed, female migrants and returnees have received little attention in the academic and policy literature largely because when women migrated they were seen to be following in male migrants’ footsteps and therefore ‘behaving like men’ (Carling 2005: 4). Alternatively, they may be represented as ‘dependants’, a term that casts them as unproductive and passive (ibid.: 10). Where there has been a focus, it has been on women as mothers in transnational families and kinship relations rather than on highly skilled migrants and their career development and work trajectories (Ammassari 2004: 136; Wong 2014).

Recent literature on gender and migration highlights the need to focus on the differences between women (King and Lulle 2022: 53). In this respect, Mahler and Pessar’s (2001: 445) concept of ‘gendered geographies of power’ foregrounds the importance of social location or people’s subject positions within ‘hierarchies of power’, which are, in turn, mediated by class, social status, nationality, race, generation, sexuality, etc. Indeed, varied subject positions and intersectional identities shape decisions to return and experiences of migration and return (Wong 2014: 439). Wong’s study of highly skilled Ghanaian women returnees focuses on the way in which they use their class status, connections and transnational practices in strategizing and renegotiating gendered roles and expectations in their decisions to return to Ghana, and in their experiences on return. Building on this approach, I consider the contributions that returnees make to the places to which they have migrated as well as on return, and I position The Gambia and the places to which they have migrated as ‘co-constitutive elements’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012: 116) in the development of their work and gendered subjectivities.

Gambian migrations

The Gambia, Britain and Europe share connected histories, dating from precolonial mercantile networks, where ‘complex trading and travel routes’ bridged sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean worlds (Sheller and Urry 2006: 209; Maher 2017: 80). A British colony from 1821 to 1965, The Gambia gained independence from Britain in 1965 and is now largely dependent on tourism and remittances from Gambians living abroad. Historically an agrarian, services and trade economy, with a small manufacturing base, the country experienced the process of de-agrarianization in sub-Saharan Africa from the 1970s (Bryceson 2002: 725) as a result of increasing desertification and drought in the Sahel region, the decreasing value of the groundnut and market liberalization. This process has resulted in increased economic inequality, with many rural Gambians moving to urban areas for work in the tourist sector (Kea 2010).

Significantly, there is a long history of elite West African migration to Europe for education (Adi 2012), highlighting the historic role of educational migration in the (re)production of status (Olwig and Valentin 2015: 247). In colonial and postcolonial Gambian society, those with social status and financial resources consolidated their status through educational migration. Furthermore, educated Gambians have had to migrate to other West African countries, Britain, the USA, Canada, Turkey, China and Eastern Europe in order to pursue higher education because the University of The Gambia was not established until 1998.

As a hierarchical society, with the Mandinka as the majority ethnic group, stratification is based on caste, class, descent, ethnic, generational, national, religious and gender differences (Kea 2010). The Gambia is patrilineal and polygamous, with some men having up to four wives. There is a great deal of pressure on married women to have children as they represent an extension of patrilineal descent groups (ibid.: 115). Generally, Gambian women work outside the home as farmers and market traders, earning very little.⁴ However, social status, class, descent, generation, levels of education, access to financial resources and other intra-gender differences position some women more powerfully than others, allowing some to readily challenge hegemonic notions of appropriate gendered behaviour (ibid.: 18).

Generational and class hierarchies are apparent in the high rates of unemployment among youth, which had risen to 60 per cent in 2016 (Kebba 2019: 30). Following years of the oppressive rule of Yahya Jammeh (1994–2017), the country’s economy contracted further. During this period, reliance on remittances from the Gambian diaspora grew substantially (Kebbeh 2013). At the same time, increasing numbers of Gambians left the country, moving to other West African countries, Europe and the USA (Kea 2020). The percentage of skilled Gambians leaving the country rose to the second highest in Africa (63 per cent in 2000) (Kebbeh 2013). Over 20,000 Gambians have left The Gambia since 2016, undertaking treacherous journeys to Europe ‘along … the “Backway”’ (Dennis 2019: i). The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has supported the return of ‘failed’ Gambian asylum seekers in Europe and those living in a state of limbo in Libya through assisted voluntary return (ibid.: 167–8). ‘Between 2017 and 2019, over 3500 Gambians participated in assisted returns’ (ibid.: i).

Yahya Jammeh’s government was recognized as being corrupt and renowned for human rights abuses, including censoring the press and imprisoning journalists and anyone who was critical of the government. All of these factors prompted many Gambians, including some in the diaspora, to vote him out of power, as well as tactically organize for his successful removal from power (Roin and Danielsen 2018).

Jammeh’s successor, Adama Barrow, was elected in January 2017 and pledged to address the human rights abuses, corruption and failings of the Jammeh regime, with the primary intention of encouraging Gambians in the diaspora to return to rebuild the nation (Kebba 2019: 167). As a result, many ‘willing’ returnees have returned to a post-Jammeh Gambia. Further, with increasing numbers of West African women migrating voluntarily to Europe (Lutz 2010: 1651) and elsewhere, there is a need to map the narratives of those who choose to return to West Africa.

The artist

Located on the outskirts of Tanji, a coastal fishing village, Mama Africa art residence houses an art gallery, community space and tourist hotel. Awa and her German husband own and run the space.⁵ Sitting in a large open-air café above the gallery, with jazz music softly playing in the background, Awa recounted details of her initial departure from The Gambia to Germany and her return.

I felt that there was not much support and I felt that I was alone as a woman … I was at a club called the Gambian Black African art club … I was the only female there at that time and you have more than twenty men and I was the only woman there. It was not easy for me. Being the only woman I have no voice but I was very creative … I take care of the gallery in Cape Point in those days. I clean the gallery … But they [the men] were just looking down on me and did not give me the power to do what I can do and the support.

As a woman painter in The Gambia, with no formal art school training, she felt isolated and lacked the support of other painters. After meeting her future husband, she moved to Germany in 2000, returning to The Gambia in 2008. During this period her reputation as an artist grew. After being invited to exhibit her work at the UNESCO musical awards, Awa was given funding to work for a month in the German city of Aachen with other African and German women painters. She continued to exhibit throughout Europe. Co-artists, as well as those viewing her work, responded positively, which helped with networking and future exhibitions. In talking about her exhibitions, Awa emphasizes the emotional response people have to her work. She sees it as a point of engagement, in which people feel connected to the work and to each other in the shared experience of viewing and engaging emotionally with her work. Once she had developed artistically and established her reputation as a painter, Awa felt compelled to return to The Gambia.

I decided to come back from Germany because I think I learned a lot, I see a lot. I know a lot, with the help of my husband. So, I have to come back again. It would be a waste because you have thousands of millions of people like me in Europe … I don’t need the country to give me money to come back. If I come, it will be useful for me to set up something.

On her return, she established Mama Africa art residence. This space was subsequently demolished by Jammeh, the former president, who claimed ownership of the land and bulldozed the site, a pattern of violent appropriation that characterized his regime. Yet, in recounting this story, Awa was philosophical, reflecting on the process, the journey and the labour involved in building and rebuilding. After re-migrating to Germany for a brief period, she and her husband returned to The Gambia once Jammeh had been toppled and rebuilt the art residence. Awa continues to travel and exhibit. Although she has previously been refused visas to participate in exhibitions in Eastern Europe and Taiwan, Awa feels that, given her hard work and success as an artist, she ‘deserves to go places’.

The journalist

Sitting in her broadcasting studio in a Gambian coastal city, Binta recounted details of her migratory history. A successful journalist and broadcaster, she initially studied in Britain at Birmingham City University in the early 1990s. Unable to finish her degree because of family financial pressures, she returned to The Gambia. However, she was later able to return to Britain to complete a diploma in Media and Communication from Handsfield college. She then travelled to Taiwan for a media development programme and BBC Commonwealth training programme. In 1994, she returned to The Gambia to work in radio and then television, where she read the national news for ten years and started the first TV talk show in The Gambia.

Shortly after 2000, she moved to the USA to join her Gambian husband who was living there at the time. After separating from him, she returned to The Gambia and was hired to work as Yahya Jammeh’s press secretary. Her ex-husband and three children remained in the USA. This was a tumultuous period because she was arrested and held for twenty-five days in prison for ‘tarnishing Jammeh’s image’. She was given bail, yet, facing the threat of fifteen years in prison and possible death, she went into exile in 2013 in the USA. She was the only remaining family member in The Gambia. Her father had passed away and her mother, children and siblings were living in the USA.

Following Jammeh’s defeat in 2017, she returned to The Gambia. Binta frames her return in relation to her role as a journalist and broadcaster in the successful campaign to remove Jammeh.

We have an app which was downloaded by over 100,000 people. So, people started listening to my radio station. We also have a website where they can go read news and we have a Facebook page which has the highest number of followers in Gambia. So, people were able to access us. Because he [Jammeh] thought that when he arrested me and stopped me from the TV he was going to kill my voice. But then I travelled and the people still followed me, more people followed me. So, that was how he lost the fight and we fought against him.

As well as maintaining a US network, she now runs an online television station where she televises a news review programme and carries out interviews with government officials, the Gambian president, personalities, activists and people from civil society. Binta travels regularly for work, having recently travelled to Sierra Leone and Senegal to interview the first ladies, and to the USA to visit her children. Moreover, her American green card gives her ready access to the USA and ease of mobility in Europe and elsewhere, a privilege that distinguishes her from Awa and the majority of Gambians.

The financier and trader

Mariama, a young Gambian woman from a prosperous family, studied for her first degree in Britain, returned to The Gambia in 2003 for two months to get married, and travelled back to Britain to complete a master’s degree in International Banking and Finance. She lived in her father’s house, in a London suburb, with her two sisters and brother, and worked part time in a bakery at Waterloo station.

Once she finished her master’s, she returned to The Gambia. With the growth of foreign banks in The Gambia from 2001, there was a demand for people with her qualifications. Mariama has worked in a number of different roles in her career in finance. After working at the government’s personal management office for three months, she worked at a privatization agency (public–private partnership), part of the Ministry of Finance, for three years. In 2008 she moved to Access bank, where she worked until 2015. She then moved to the Gambia Financial Intelligence Unit, which focuses on money laundering, financial crimes and weapons of mass destruction; its UK equivalent is the National Crime Agency.

During this period, Mariama travelled regularly to Nigeria, and less frequently to Morocco, Lebanon and Mauritius. Despite the stimulation and varied work environments, she felt the need for a new challenge. After her father’s death, she set up a trading business and imported children’s clothes and toys from Dubai. Her shop, an upmarket children’s clothing and toy shop, is located in a lively quarter of a busy market town in a building, and larger complex, that was owned by her father. Children’s clothes and toys hang from the walls and are displayed on shelves and counters.

Having recently established the business, she travelled to Dubai for the first time six months ago to set up links with suppliers, with the intention of travelling there periodically to restock and diversify her goods. She is still developing a sense of the types of clothing and toys that well-off Gambians want to purchase. She maintains that her previous experience of travelling and networking with people from a range of different cultures has equipped her with the skills to do business in Dubai. She initially wanted to travel to China to source goods but was advised by her sister and brother, who had both previously done business in Dubai, to buy goods there first and then consider expanding to China. On her return to The Gambia she purchased two farms, large plots of land in an inland village, where her husband grows cashew and cassava crops that they either sell or consume themselves. He travels to the village every summer in the rainy season to manage the farms and to oversee farmers whom he has employed to cultivate the fields. She is also completing an accountancy qualification.

Migration and return

Both Binta’s and Mariama’s families funded their educational migration to Britain to gain qualifications in the media and finance. Although Binta’s studies in Britain were cut short as a result of family financial pressures, she later returned to complete a diploma and then travelled to Taiwan for further media training. By contrast, Awa was able to move to Germany because she married a German citizen. As the only female member of the Gambian Black African art club, she felt isolated and was keen to travel and live elsewhere. Her work as an artist in Germany, particularly her opportunity to paint in a collective space with other female artists and immerse herself in a ‘community of practice’ (Singleton 1998), helped her to build an international reputation as a painter. Once Awa had established her reputation as a painter, she and her husband chose to return to the urban coastal areas of The Gambia. She recognized that there were many skilled painters like herself in Germany and that she could develop her career, distinguish herself and contribute more in The Gambia (cf. Sinatti 2019: 615). However, after their hotel and gallery were destroyed by Jammeh, they regretted the decision, moving back to Germany shortly afterwards. They made the decision to return once again, after Jammeh had lost the 2017 elections.

After completing her first degree, Mariama returned to The Gambia to marry and, as agreed with her husband and with financial support from her parents, travelled back to Britain to complete a master’s in International Banking and Finance. Although she wanted to stay on in Britain for a short period to gain relevant work experience, she knew that she would have struggled to get work that reflected her qualifications (cf. Ammassari 2004: 140). She also faced pressure from her husband and parents to start a family.

Binta’s experiences of migration and return reflect the different educational, work and marital imperatives in her life, as well as wider political pressures: she initially moved to the UK for education and then returned to work in radio and television in The Gambia. She then moved to the USA to join her Gambian husband who was living there at the time. After the breakdown of her marriage, she returned to The Gambia. Finally, her departure to the USA, as an asylum seeker, and her return to a post-Jammeh Gambia reflect the turmoil of the Jammeh years and a rapidly changing political landscape. She could have stayed on in the USA because of her migration status. However, like Awa, she felt that she would be able to further her career, distinguish herself and have more influence in The Gambia. Nonetheless, she travels frequently to the USA to spend time with her three teenage children and maintains that ‘It’s a difficult time with them as teenagers. So, I do go to the US a lot.’

Building careers and negotiating gendered expectations

Awa, Binta and Mariama have actively shaped their careers and imagined futures through migration and return. Yet, to varying degrees, class, social status, family support, social networks and access to financial resources have been crucial in helping them to do so. Further, despite the failings and precarious nature of the Gambian political economy, its urban and peri-urban spaces ‘continue to be places of experimentation for engagement’ (Simone 2001: 22), creative practices and novel opportunities, particularly for those with the resources to invest in them. For instance, Awa and her husband were able to build their art centre, gallery and hotel, and subsequently rebuild them after they had been destroyed by Jammeh, because her German husband was in a position to fund the development. A novel artistic and creative space, it has generated new forms of sociality that foster the exchange of knowledge, practice and ideas between budding artists, writers, Gambian women, tourists and local members of the community.

Drawing on her transnational networks, Awa also organizes various projects designed to support local women (e.g. ‘child spacing’ or ‘natural family planning’, where women are taught to keep track of the days when they are most fertile in order to either prevent or promote pregnancy). She sees these educational projects as a form of knowledge exchange in which those who are trained go on to train and impart knowledge to other women.

We always said the teaching project is for me more effective than the money project because you have to give the people education. You understand. If you have the education this is the victory. It’s not the money … But if you bring the knowledge, that knowledge will help a lot of people here. So, we are always saying we need knowledge. Any project should be with knowledge, you understand. So, now we have this woman from England who is very good. She is number one of the training, this fertility thing. Natural family planning, which is Susan. Susan was coming here and with a few village women Susan give them the training and then leave them here so they continue the training so people can learn from this. Now we don’t need Susan any more because we have top ladies who can do it very well. Every cycle is different to the other one. So they teach you according to how many days is your period and then they can teach you. So now we have teachers all around and then we pay them salaries and they can go everywhere and then they are just helping the people, training them.

This project is a manifestation of the feminist politics that underpins Awa’s work as an artist. She is also in a financial position to support other Gambian women who are less powerfully positioned. With reference to low-income female farmers and traders, Awa comments on how hard Gambian women work, juggling childcare, work at the gardens, domestic work and gendered expectations: ‘You know sometimes I just walk and I see my sisters, and aunts and mums around, and how much they are working. And how much they are suffering.’ Both of Awa’s primary carers, her mother and aunt, died when she was young. Reflecting on the fact that women, as carers, are rarely cared for, Awa stated: ‘I know that women need to be cared here. We have to put our attention towards the ladies here because the men have a lot of powers and the women are a little bit down.’

Similarly, Binta, who was able to save money while in exile in the USA, provided the funds to set up her broadcasting business, including investing in very expensive studio equipment and purchasing a building. She employs ten Gambian journalists and broadcasters and has created a space in which they can share ideas in a collaborative working environment. She includes local people’s views on current affairs in her online series ‘What do people say?’ As a result, she has established a significant public profile.

There is a status and recognition that comes with transnational migration (Herz-Jakoby 2013: 67). As such, returnees, particularly women, may be seen as a challenge to existing social orders, hierarchies and practices (Ammassari 2004: 145). Awa’s and Binta’s success as public figures, who engage in transnational migration and challenge gendered norms through their work and influence, has generated anger and resentment among certain groups who stigmatize successful women. As a result, Awa has been excluded from membership of the national artists’ association, formerly the Gambian Black African art club. Although a member before migrating to Germany, she had always felt marginalized. Awa explained: ‘They haven’t changed because this time before they were telling me, “Go and cook. You are a woman. Go and take care of your children,” and now it’s like the power is too much for them because what I can do, what I can set up.’ Awa manages her feelings of frustration and anger at her exclusion by highlighting the power that she feels she wields in the art world and by minimizing the importance of the art club, both in The Gambia and internationally. Her relative wealth and status in The Gambia mean that she is no longer dependent on membership or the approval of Gambian male artists for professional recognition.

Similarly, Binta, a divorcee, with no immediate family in The Gambia and no visible caring responsibilities, is viewed with suspicion by parts of the public. Her status as an unmarried woman and public figure, who often reports critically on individuals and events, makes her vulnerable to misogyny:

You know when you’re in the media and you’re famous, like I’m not married … and their supporters will come after you and they will call you names. ‘Oh you prostitute.’ You know women face that a lot … They know nothing about you and maybe you don’t even have a boyfriend. ‘Oh, you sleep around, you do this. You do that.’ They will come up with all kinds of crazy allegations. Or your kids were not born by your ex-husband, another man is their dad. That kind of thing we have. You know at the end of it all, when I sit down I think if I was not making a impact I would not have that so.

Positioned in such a way as to be able to effectively resist this abuse, Binta feels that her experiences of misogyny merely reflect her impact in The Gambia and her established profile and public voice among the West African diaspora. As she states: ‘Women try to have some strength and you’re powerful, you’re bad.’

Although gender inequality can serve as an obstacle to career progression for highly skilled women in sub-Saharan Africa (Spadavecchia 2013: 97), Binta’s and Awa’s social and financial status has helped them to challenge these obstacles. Support from their extensive local and transnational networks helps them to manage gendered discrimination and, in Binta’s case, gendered expectations around her status as a single divorcee. And given that ‘[s]uccessful return is frequently measured in terms of an economic accomplishment’ (Sinatti 2011: 156), their access to substantial financial resources has helped them to consolidate their work positions and develop their careers. Their privilege helps them to challenge and disrupt conventional gender hierarchies and expectations.

By contrast, Mariama has felt supported as a woman working in the financial sector, where there has been a demand for people with her qualifications. Indeed, she maintains that there has been an expansion of work and educational opportunities targeting Gambian women in sectors such as banking, where, in the early 2000s, there was a substantial expansion of foreign banks in The Gambia.

I didn’t face anything like that, discrimination and all that. Because the society is giving priority to women … You go to the Gambia College, the university and you see women. Even at workplaces and all that. Even my last employer Gambia Financial Intelligence Unit, they try to empower women by giving more ladies opportunities. You can really see on the board that they are interested in having more women. I think that is really changing. Women empowerment is key.

Mariama was able to secure well-paid work in the financial sector because of her education in Britain, which, in turn, was funded by her family. She also benefited from a generational shift whereby, in recognition of the increased importance of higher education for women, her parents invested in both her and her sisters’ education. ‘I come from a family where mostly men are educated. Here, women are not given that much priority. Nowadays things are changing because women are getting educated.’ After her father died, she inherited a large building that houses a number of retail outlets. She decided to open a ‘high-end’ shop, maintaining that she wanted to ‘follow my dad. He was a businessman. Maybe that’s the path that I want to take. Maybe it’s just a change in career. Going for something that is very different.’ This change in her work was helped by the fact that her father owned the complex. With her own retail outlet, and as the new owner of the complex, Mariama is powerfully positioned and sees this opportunity as an extension of her work and an expansion of her skills. In the process of preparing for an accountancy exam, she talked about returning to this work in the future, once she had established her retail business. As evidence of her desire to diversify her work and her sources of income, she has invested in two farms growing cashew and cassava crops. Her husband, a consultant, spends time managing the farms and recruiting labour to cultivate the crops. Here, Mariama’s class position, levels of education and access to financial resources have helped her to reimagine and diversify her career. Her position of privilege has provided her with a range of opportunities and possibilities, thereby influencing both her decision to return to The Gambia and the changing nature of her career post-return.

Transnational networks and the exchange of knowledge

Awa’s and Binta’s accounts of migration and return highlight the centrality of transnational networks and the exchange of knowledge, ideas and practices in the development of their careers. To be sure, they have contributed to Gambian society and the economy in their post-return working lives. Yet, as previously discussed, migrant returnees have been primarily portrayed as ‘agents of development’ who return having accumulated various types of capital. Africa, in turn, is represented as a place of ‘absence’ and African migrants positioned as deficient and lacking in capital and resources (Akesson and Baaz 2015: 7). This perspective fails to take into consideration the skills, resources and capital that returnees contribute to the places to which they migrate. In fact, it negates the centrality of Africa (and Africans) in the historical ‘flows of capital, labour, ideas and visions’ (Roy 2014: 17) as well as the role of some returnees in maintaining these transnational networks, linkages and flows (Sinatti 2019: 620). Although Awa’s creativity and work blossomed while working with other female artists in Germany, she actively shared her artistic skills and insights with other painters in a mutual exchange of knowledge. At the same time, the painters she interacted with were influenced by her presence and practice. Further, as part of the International Association of Art, a community of artists, her paintings are exchanged and exhibited in Europe and North America. As mobile objects, they move across borders and map transnational networks and global connections; they symbolize Awa’s accomplishments and increasing influence and recognition.

While in exile, Binta set up an online network and engaged in political work, sharing knowledge about Jammeh’s atrocities and breaches of human rights with Gambians, and others, in the diaspora. Her digital radio station app was very popular with Gambians at home and in the diaspora, who also subscribed to her news website and Facebook page. Binta’s work in the USA and her wealth of experience and knowledge were key in disseminating information about the political situation in The Gambia among Gambians at home and in the diaspora, and, ultimately, in helping to bring about political change (cf. Ammassari 2004: 147). As a journalist in exile, no longer living with the threat of imprisonment, she had a platform to engage in online political activism. As well as developing a prominent public voice and reputation, professional and personal networks and connections in West Africa, Europe and North America, she employs local journalists at her studio in The Gambia and exchanges her knowledge in the process.

Similarly, Mariama’s migratory and work trajectory foreground The Gambia’s position in ‘increasingly elaborated transnational circuits of movement and exchange’ (Simone 2011: 379). Such ‘transnational circuits’ are nicely illustrated in the context of an expansion of international banks in The Gambia in the early 2000s; it was relatively easy for Mariama to secure work and to develop global professional networks throughout West Africa and the Middle East. This expansion, in turn, reflects The Gambia’s global financial connections. She continues to develop new networks in Dubai and build on her knowledge and the development of her work as a trader. Indeed, her new career foregrounds the importance of family members and local networks in the development of returnees’ ‘business ventures’ (Setrana and Tonah 2016: 554).

Awa’s, Binta’s and Mariama’s experiences of migration and return have been central to the development of their careers. Yet, they also reflect the demands of gendered expectations and marital obligations, a changing Gambian political economy, and the precarious nature of life in Jammeh’s Gambia. Their social status and access to financial resources, levels of education, and local and transnational networks have helped them to negotiate and, in the case of Awa and Binta, challenge gendered expectations and relations, while also positioning them in such a way as to be able to develop their careers in the arts, media and trade.

Their networks, both in The Gambia and elsewhere (cf. Ammassari 2004), the contributions that they have made to their places of migration, and the accompanying exchange of knowledge, ideas and practices make visible the mutually constitutive relationship between The Gambia, the global South, and Britain, the global North, in the development of their careers. Indeed, as returnees who engage in transnational practices, I frame them as ‘intermediaries whose power rests on being able to forge connections and bridge gaps’ (Savage and Williams 2008: 4).

Conclusion: the political possibilities of return

The global circulation of people, objects and ideas foregrounds, in a rich contemporary and historical tapestry, The Gambia’s global entanglements, positioning it as in and of this world rather than marginal and peripheral to it (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018). As such, my interlocuters’ experiences and gendered subjectivities highlight existing spaces and points of connection, co-production, mutual constitution, simultaneity and relatedness. Their journeys of migration and return highlight connected histories and the mutually constitutive modes of existence between Africa and other parts of the world, where one is closely tied to and implicated in the other.

Significantly, the act of return symbolizes a challenge to historicist accounts of sub-Saharan Africa, in that The Gambia is no longer ‘consigned … to an imaginary waiting room of history’ (Chakrabarty 2000: 7). In this sense, the journeys described in these three case studies are central to how we understand and reimagine not so much the idea of The Gambia and Africa (Mudimbe 1994) but the Gambian and African idea (Thiong’o 2009: 74), as they return to develop their careers in vibrant, creative, albeit challenging spaces in The Gambia.

The invocation of crisis in relation to African migration privileges particular accounts while precluding others (Roitman 2013). It reproduces a metanarrative through which African migration, between the global South and North, African subjectivities and ‘the idea of Africa itself’ (Mudimbe 1994) are frequently understood. Such language is rooted in the coloniality of knowledge production which hides and disallows counter-stories. As such, the three cases of Gambian women returnees’ experiences of migration and return produce alternative accounts and language around West African migration. Unsettling the language of crisis that frames dominant understandings and representations of African migrations entails an engagement with the diverse and rich array of African historical and contemporary migrations. In mapping counter-journeys of migration and return we challenge metanarratives that are rooted in a historicist paradigm (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012: 119). By the same token, recentring The Gambia, and Africa, constitutes a recognition of sub-Saharan Africa in the (co-)production of ideas and knowledge, and of ‘its global entanglements with multiple elsewheres’ (Mbembe 2016: 31).