Antropologia della mobilità e spazi dell'immaginario. Un'etnografia urbana sui "migranti in piroga" e non-migranti nel Senegal contemporaneo

Starting from the question on how ‘mobility’ is experienced and described in Senegalese context (the migrants country of origin), the PhD research aims to examine the relationship between mobility, space and imagination, their role in the social construction of migratory dimension. This purpose is pursued by looking at the phenomenon of “clandestine” pirogue migrants to Canary Islands and the experiences of non-migrants (relatives of migrants, neighbourhood friends, people professionally involved in touristic activities) in the peripheries of Dakar and the touristic urban areas of Mbour-Saly. Considering the strong influence of tourism in these latter places, part of the work aims to deepen the social transformations triggered by the tourism (tourist actors), and the role that it plays among the residents, and to what extend it gives meaning to images, narrations and daily practices through which these people grow their desir de l'Ailleurs, and build up the social representation of the Elsewhere. On the other hand, the research explores the historicity of migratory processes and the specific ‘culture of migration’, by focusing the attention on the social practices, the organizational logics, the choices, as well as on the representations and practices of inclusion/exclusion that the migrants or ‘candidates to migration’ endure within the urban areas and in relation to the social contexts wherein they get into.