Panel 10: To Leave or to Stay? Unpacking (Im)Mobility from Origin to Destination (EN)

Chair: Adélia Verônica da Silva (IGOT-University of Lisbon)

Part I: 15 April, 5:10 pm | Room C1

After Chuy-Chui: to remigrate, to return, or to stay? Senegalese “on the move” in a Border Region between Uruguay and Brazil and the Next Stages of their Transnational Journeys

Paola Gatti (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

Since the late 1990s, South America has begun to present itself as a new destination of interest for Senegalese people, simulating encouraging prospects through its seemingly "migration-friendly" legislation (Kleidermacher, 2016; Minvielle, 2016). This led to the increase of Senegalese migration and the consolidation of its networks for more than two decades, especially in the region’s Southern Cone (Espiro, 2021). In turn, the “twin” cities of Chuy-Chui, located in the border region between eastern Uruguay and southern Brazil, that are part of this recent south-south route, had been a settlement destination for people of diverse origins, especially large Arab-Muslim communities (of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian origin) since the mid-20th century (Curi, 2021). Currently, the arrival of Senegalese to Chuy-Chui (that started in 2014), have turned this borderland into part of an interregional, intercontinental, and transnational network of human mobility, in which solidarities and “chains of trust” (Van Liempt, 2007) among diasporas have emerged, but also tensions that lie within dichotomic complexities of temporariness and permanence, mobilities and immobilities, nationals/bi-nationals/non-nationals, local and global practices.

This research was carried out using a multi-sited ethnographic approach, during different periods of fieldwork between 2023 and 2024 in Chuy-Chui and in Diourbel (Senegal), and it focuses on the experiences of Senegalese migrants (male and Muslim) who navigate through this borderland and who previously travelled through other countries in South America and/or West Africa. Their accounts situate diverse temporalities (understood as moments within their transnational journeys): the past, which prior to their arrival (to Chuy-Chui particularly, and to South America in general) made this place an imagined site; the present, in which they are there, making their place -in the sense of building belonging-; and the future, imagined or materialized elsewhere, which turns this border space into a place of transit, which can extend for five years or even longer time.

Departing from the idea of Chuy-Chui as a place of in-between (Bhabha, 1994) both because of being a borderland but also a place of transit, and taking the border as a moment (Coraza and Uriarte, 2024), through this paper I propose to dig deeper in the next stages of these persons’ transnational projects, exploring their aspirations, strategies and subjective practices, while navigating the idea of “being on the move” as an ever-present postulate in the speeches of the Senegalese people I worked with. The new possibilities they imagine for the future are always present within their narratives: returning to Senegal or to other destinations already transited, staying where they are, or remigrating somewhere new. In the meantime, they remain in Chuy-Chui, reshaping its in-betweenness into a connecting point within the temporalities that bridge the paths already walked with the ones that are to come.

Keywords: transnational migration; temporalities; transit; South America; Senegal

Tracing Shifting Identities: Gender, Race, and Generational Belonging in the East African Diaspora in the U.S.

Claudine Kuradusenge-McLeod (American University)

Diasporic experiences in the United States are shaped by intersecting experiences of race, gender, and generation. For East African diasporic communities from Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, migration is not an event, but rather a process heavily informed by histories of violence, displacement, and survival. Such layered histories impact how individuals and families understand their experiences and embody their identities in ways that may vary across generations.

This study examines how identities are negotiated within and between generations, paying closer attention to the roles of women and youth in preserving and reshaping cultural practices. It explores how forced migration, gendered forms of trauma, and the realities of resettlement transform traditional family roles and community structures. While many first-generation migrants engage in cultural preservation as a form of continuity and resistance, younger generations often develop hybrid identities that reflect both inherited values and new social realities.

Using semi-structured interviews and community engagement through participant observation, this paper explores how memory, belonging, and mobility are expressed differently by Rwandan, Burundian, and Congolese diasporans. These narratives highlight shared dynamics as well as distinct personal and collective experiences. The research contributes to broader discussions on diaspora by highlighting how transcultural belonging is continually shaped by the interplay of gender, race, and generational position.

Keywords: diaspora; migration; mobility; memory; narrative

From Homeland to Diaspora: Religious Responses to Bosnian Muslim Migrations in the 20th Century

Ehlimana Memisevic (Faculty of Law, University of Sarajevo)

The end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century were marked by continued migration of the Muslim population from the Balkans, a direct consequence of the disintegration of the Ottoman state and the rise of nationalism. According to official statistics, between 1878 and 1918, around 1.5 million Muslims left the Balkans, while approximately 100,000 Muslims departed from Bosnia during Austro-Hungarian rule. Migration continued throughout the 20th century, culminating in the wave of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. Bosnian Muslim religious scholars (ulama) were among the first to recognize the existential threat that migration posed for the survival of their community. They sought ways to stem the waves of emigration, and their responses not only contributed to the survival of Bosnian Muslims but also to the preservation of their religious identity alongside a developing European one. There were two major waves of mass migration of Bosnian Muslims at the turn of the 20th century – after the Austro-Hungarian occupation (1878) and the formal annexation of Bosnia (1908). As migration intensified, threatening the survival of Bosnian Muslims as a community, the ulama came to realize that it was not din (religion) that was most endangered, but rather vatan (homeland). One of the most important voices was that of the Mufti of Tuzla, Mehmed Teufik Azabagić, who authored the treatise Risala fi al-hijra. In this work, he examined the categories of dar al-islam (territory of Islam) and dar al-harb (territory of war) in the spirit of modern reformist thought, stressing their irrelevance in the specific circumstances of his time. He opened his Risala with the hadith: “Love of one’s homeland is part of faith.” Azabagić rejected the analogy between the Prophet’s hijra – which had been necessary for the survival of Islam – and the emigration of Bosnian Muslims, which instead threatened Islam’s survival in Bosnia. By publishing his treatise first in Arabic and later in Turkish, Azabagić reached both scholars and the wider community, and his arguments contributed significantly to slowing the migration wave toward the Ottoman Empire. Almost a century later, during the Serbian aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina and subsequent “ethnic cleansing” and the genocide of Bosniaks from 1992 to 1995, when half of the Bosniak population was forced to leave the country and seek refuge abroad, Azabagić’s ideas regained their relevance. He is now recognized as the first Bosnian scholar of modern times to highlight the territorial dimension as crucial for Muslim survival in a non-Muslim environment. Bosnian Muslims could not exist as an abstract community, he argued, but only as inhabitants of particular villages, towns, and cities. Islam in Bosnia could be preserved only if the Muslim settlements themselves were preserved. Migration weakened the vitality of the community, reduced its living space, and gradually relegated Muslims to the status of a physical and intellectual minority. On 10 September 1992, the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina published a proclamation reflecting this very logic. It stated: “In a situation when the vital interests of the Muslim people are endangered, the Islamic Community has a moral and historical obligation to declare its views on the exodus to which Muslims are exposed. Starting from the general religious principle that a Muslim is obliged to oppose evil, we emphasize that the defence of one’s homeland is a farz-i ‘ayn—a personal obligation and strict duty of every adult Muslim.” The proclamation further stressed that the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina was aimed at the extermination of Muslims and the ethnic cleansing of their territories. It concluded that in the Bosnian context, there could be no religious justification for emigration (hijra). Instead, the only way forward was to defend the homeland and secure survival. These views, endorsed by the highest bodies of the Islamic Community, echoed Azabagić’s century-old insistence on the inseparability of faith, homeland, and community. This article examines how Bosnian Islamic scholarship from the late 19th to the 20th century redefined the concept of homeland and belonging in response to migration and political upheaval. By reinterpreting vatan as integral to Muslim faith, Bosnian ulama laid the foundations for a national-religious discourse that resurfaced with renewed urgency during the 1990s war. The case of Bosnia demonstrates that for Muslim communities in minority or contested contexts, the preservation of homeland is not merely a political or cultural issue, but a deeply religious one as well.

Keywords: Bosnia; migration; Muslims; 20th century; occupation; annexation

Reshaping Jewish Economic Lives in Early Modern Europe: Venetian Jewry and their (Im)mobility after the Establishment of the Ghetto

Rachele Scuro (University of Pavia)

The Venetian Ghetto, established in 1516, is recognised as the first institutionalisation of coercive Jewish residence in early modern Europe, pioneering a process that spread rapidly. The key inquiry is whether this confinement was purely segregation, or if it stimulated novel mobility responses, consequently altering established socio-economic models. This paper analyses the 16th-century Venetian Ghetto to examine how these new patterns fostered a new mobility agency for both individuals and their assets. Two specific elements will be addressed. The first concerns the physical (im)mobility of individuals and how enforced residence fundamentally altered the community’s composition and its business structure. This reconfiguration stemmed from the professional division imposed by the Venetians: the Italian and Ashkenazi groups became more stably settled. For the Ashkenazim, this stability was both a tactic and an involuntary necessity for community survival, as the minority’s right to reside depended critically on the banking charters agreed with Venetian authorities. Conversely, the Sephardic component actively maintained links and a renewed mobility agency within the Euro-Mediterranean Jewish network. Their high mobility was dictated by commercial requirements (being bound by the Republic to overseas trading), positioning Venice as just one node in their extensive business circuits. In second place, the constrained space generated alternative gendered mobility circuits, primarily by treating the spatial element as a commodity. The right to a dwelling was mostly conveyed through the dowry to the future bride. Consequently, the pattern of marital movement reversed: before the Ghetto, women were mobile, but afterwards, the groom was subsequently forced to relocate to settle where the bride secured the accommodation. This shift in nuptial mobility saw voluntary movement and constraint exchange genders, fundamentally reshaping family economic strategies and networks.

Keywords: Venetian history; history of the Jews; ghettoisation; early modern Italy; port Jews

Part II: 16 April, 9:00 am | Room C115

Adjusted Mobility: An Anthropological Study of Festivities in the Azores

Yu Sasaki (Tohoku University)

This presentation examines the vitality of villages (freguesia) in the Azores, particularly on Terceira Island. Previous research has called Terceira the "island of festivals" due to its numerous festivities. Indeed, each village holds street bullfights and religious processions no less than once a summer. Each village also has at least one band (filarmónica), which plays an important role in festivals. However, the Azores have also been characterized by intense mobility. In the past, there was a large emigration to the United States and Canada, as well as within the archipelago, particularly from the neighboring Graciosa Island to Terceira. However, previous research has not clarified how the local cultural vitality is maintained, despite such harsh fluidity of the population. Therefore, this paper elucidates the mechanisms that maintain the dynamism of local communities, based on anthropological fieldwork. Through research, it was observed that young islanders who moved to the mainland in search of education or employment opportunities often returned to nearby urban areas to participate in annual festivals. About filarmónicas, it is clarified that bands from the most remote area of the island are sometimes invited to play music in festivities in other villages. Furthermore, since there are so many bands that the villagers alone cannot sustain their activities, key members, such as the conductor, travel to the other side of the island to fill in for vacant positions. While the mobility in and around the island has become normal, the kinship network of musicians linking the villages keeps the festival seemingly unchanged. Therefore, it is difficult to say that the dynamism of festivities is maintained by the supposed "traditionally immobilized villagers." Rather, it is pretended to be unchanged by "partial affiliation" with each village. In other words, mobility is adjusted by the centripetal appeal of festivities.

Keywords: Azores; festivities; local community; emigration; kinship relation

Malayali Women on the Move: How (Im)mobility Shapes Lives

Chiara Panizzi (CRIA, FCSH, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa; ISCTE)

Taking as a starting point a project being carried out as the subject of a PhD in Anthropology, the intention is to reflect on some of the data collected so far through empirical research conducted among the Malayali community in Rome. This is a sizable migrant community of Indian origin that commenced its migratory movement to Italy in the 1960s, thereby engendering a succession of migratory waves that persist to the present day. The members of this community are predominantly Catholics belonging to the Syro-Malabar Church, an institution that plays a pivotal role in the migratory processes, both during the initial phase of departure from the place of origin and upon their subsequent arrival at the destination. The centrality of religion in the lives of Malayali community members is unmistakable. Indeed, it functions as a unifying force, providing a sense of shared identity and belonging. The presentation of three case studies of Malayali women will provide the analytical framework for the analysis of their individual trajectories from the moment of departure from Kerala to the journey, arrival and settlement in Italy. The presentation of three distinct narratives of women belonging to various age groups, with mobility trajectories commencing at different points in time and characterised by different stages, aims to instigate reflection on the aspirations and choices, agency and constraints, that generated their movements and immobilities, whilst simultaneously acknowledging the gender dynamics that inevitably influenced these paths. Adopting a holistic approach, the objective is to consider the multiple levels of (im)mobility, focusing also on the movement related to the transcultural practices and transnational rituals that characterise and shape the lives of the members of this diasporic community.

Keywords: (im)mobility; migration; gender; transcultural practices; transnational rituals

From Minho to Minas Gerais: The Franciscan Third Order as a Space of Belonging in the Portuguese Diaspora

Natalia Casagrande Salvador (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais) & Alexandra Vidal (Arquivo da Venerável Ordem Terceira de São Francisco do Porto)

The promise of gold and rapid demographic growth attracted large numbers of Portuguese migrants to the mining region of eighteenth-century Brazil. Yet what anchored them in this colonial environment was the Third Order of St. Francis, whose branch in Mariana granted access to the same benefits already enjoyed in the kingdom through membership in the Order. This institution offered migrants more than spiritual prestige: it provided a durable structure of belonging and support, linking their past in Portugal with their present and future in Brazil. Through its transatlantic presence, the Third Order enabled the construction of a transnational identity that transcended geographical displacement. At the same time, it functioned as a key space for transcultural practices, in which norms, values, and customs brought from northern Portugal were negotiated and adapted to the social, economic, and demographic realities of Minas Gerais. The identity forged within this setting was therefore neither entirely Portuguese nor entirely colonial, but rather a hybrid form, shaped by the tensions between the normative ideals and everyday practice.

Keywords: transnational identity; transcultural practices; Minas Gerais; lay association; brotherhoods

From Departure to Immobilisation: Afro-European Migrant Identities and Women’s Resistance in Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street

Isabella Villanova (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

My presentation contributes to the discourse on Afro-European migrant identities, intertwining literary and socio-political frameworks while offering insights into the cultural, emotional, and political dimensions of diaspora experiences. By focusing on the intersections of mobility and immobility, it highlights how Afro-European subjectivities emerge in contexts where movement is simultaneously enabled and constrained by systemic discrimination and global crises. Literature becomes here a key space for imagining alternative futures where such identities can thrive. The first part of the presentation situates the notion of “Afro-European identities and subjectivities” within literary (Brancato 2008), socio-political (Miano 2020), and historical (Otele 2020) perspectives, with particular attention to the emotional dimensions of migration and settlement in contexts marked by insecurity and exclusion. The second part examines, as a case study, the socio-political novel On Black Sisters’ Street (2009) by Chika Unigwe. The narrative realistically intertwines the stories of four Nigerian women, from their departure to their immobilisation in Antwerp’s red-light district, revealing how structural inequalities shape their daily lives, emotional realities, and possibilities of return. Methodologically, the paper adopts an affective lens (Ahmed 2004) combined with intersectional perspectives (Crenshaw 1991; Ahmed 2014, 2017), scholarship on (im)mobilities as a continuum (Carling 2002), and on temporalities of migration (Brah 1996; Cwerner 2001). This framework allows for a nuanced analysis of how Afro-descendant women negotiate their lives while confronting structural barriers, thus foregrounding both the contested right to move and the equally contested right to remain.

Keywords: African & diaspora literature; Afro-European identities; emotions; inequality; resistance