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The migrant in a plotted adventure: Self-realisation and moral obligation in African stories from Istanbul*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2017

Mahir Şaul
Mahir Şaul*
Affiliation:
109 Davenport Hall, 607 S. Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801University of Illinois, Urbana, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article presents the cases of two migrant men, a Senegalese and a Nigerian, who spent many years in Istanbul. Although their backgrounds, personalities and circumstances were different, they both did export-related commercial work in the city. After describing sub-Saharan migration to Turkey and the literature concerning it, the text focuses on the stories these migrants spontaneously presented as they explained why they had become migrants. It was striking that with very different personal details, events and coincidences, both stories attribute the decision to migrate to Istanbul to a traumatic accident that forced the protagonists to change a life that until that point did not involve transnational migration. In the stories the protagonist's ambition, determination and will are rendered invisible and he is presented as a victim. I call this rhetorical topos ‘great mishap’. It resonates with stories I have heard from other migrants. I interpret it as an expression of compunction, of social responsibility weighing on the actor for abandoning close others in favour of an individual quest for self-realisation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 129 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

Fieldwork in 2010 and 2011 was funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and supported also with a sabbatical leave from the University of Illinois and a University of Illinois Research Board grant. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation sponsored one of the return trips.

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