Jennifer Cole (editor) - Affective Circuits: African Migrations to Europe and the Pursuit of Social Regeneration

Edited by Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes

The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

Jennifer Cole is an anthropologist and professor in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Forget Colonialism and Sex and Salvation and coeditor of Love in Africa, the latter two published by the University of Chicago Press. Christian Groes is an anthropologist and associate professor in the Department of Culture and Identity at Roskilde University in Denmark. He is the author of Transgressive Sexualities and coeditor of Studying Intimate Matters.

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2016 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. Published 2016.

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-40501-8 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-40515-5 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-40529-2 (e-book)

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226405292.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cole, Jennifer, [date] editor. | Groes, Christian, editor.

Title: Affective circuits : African migrations to Europe and the pursuit of social regeneration / edited by Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes.

Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016009802 | ISBN 9780226405018 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226405155 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226405292 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: AfricansKinshipEurope. | AfricansSocial networksEurope. | AfricansEuropeSocial life and customs. | AfricansEuropeSocial conditions. | AfricaEmigration and immigrationSocial aspects.

Classification: LCC DT16.5 .A29 2016 | DDC 305.896/04dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016009802

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes

Cati Coe

Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg

Pamela Kea

Carolyn Sargent and Stphanie Larchanch

Leslie Fesenmyer

Hlne Neveu Kringelbach

Christian Groes

Jennifer Cole

Henrik Vigh

Julie Kleinman

Sasha Newell

The migratory streams from Africa to Europe referred to in this volume

A young Cameroonian woman reading the official guidelines for family reunification, Berlin 2014

Mario Balotelli hugged his mother after scoring a goal in the 2012 European Championship

Online comments on the Daily Mail story Mario Balotellis Double Life

Online comments on the story Mario Balotelli Doesnt Like Talking about His Real Ghanaian Parents

Shake your shoulders with us; dancing at a Born House celebration, Berlin 2010

A mothers passport (Mutterpass), Berlin 2011

Photograph of a young boy who was sent to live with his grandparents in the Gambia, London 2012

Arrangement of photos and other valued objects in a Gambian compound, 2012

Malian-owned general store in Paris that imports medicinal products from Mali, 2015

The healer applies hot mutton grease to Awas wound, Bamako 2005

Le Points feature on polygamy in a Parisian banlieue, September 2010

Senegalese-French couple in Marseille, 1956

A curtidora and her patrocinador, Maputo 2013

A mother and a grandmother sitting on the front porch, Maputo 2013

Houses made of ravinala palm in the Masoala region of Madagascar, 2010

Creole-style, tin-roofed house, Masoala region, 2006

A vadimbazahas modern, cement house, Sambava, Madagascar, 2015

Lassana and a friend at a caf in the Gare du Nord, 2010

Lassana sitting in his elder brother Moussas store in Bamako, 2014

Sapeurs friment (pose) at a funeral in Paris, 2000

The author crashes a wedding reception with some sapeur friends, Paris 2000

Sapeurs often glower at the camera as part of the physical comportment of la sape, Paris 2000

Words, Mikhail Bakhtin reminds us, gather history around them, and each word tastes of the contexts in which it has lived. The same can be said of collaborative projects such as this edited collection. The idea for this volume emerged from the conference Intimate Migrations: Marriage, Sex Work and Kinship in Transnational Migration that Christian Groes organized at Roskilde University and the Danish Institute for International Studies in the spring of 2013. The book took on its Africanist focus and metamorphosed into its present form in conversation with Jennifer Cole. Together we developed the affective circuits framework and asked scholars working on African migration to Europe to engage with the concept in relation to their own research. The collection of essays presented here is the product of that many-sided collaboration.

Much as migrants journeys are made possible by the support of kin and friends, so too we have depended on the support of many institutions and individuals in bringing Affective Circuits to fruition. We had time to research, think, and write together thanks to a generous fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation awarded to Jennifer Cole, to a Young Elite Researcher Grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research awarded to Christian Groes. We were able to further develop and elaborate the ideas for this volume in a workshop entitled Of Love and Family, States and Borders: Comparative Perspectives on Afro-European Couples and Families that Jennifer Cole and Violaine Tisseau held at the University of Chicagos Paris center in the fall of 2014, which several of this volumes contributors attended. For their help, inspiration, and support along the way, we thank Signe Arnfred, Caroline Bledsoe, Maurice Bloch, Cati Coe, John and Jean Comaroff, Debbie Durham, Nicole Constable, Laura Oso Casas, Nadine Fernandez, Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg, Bolette Frydendahl Larsen, Sasha Newell, Mikkel Rytter, and Ninna Nyberg Srensen. We are especially grateful for the constructive feedback of Julie Chu, Deborah Durham, Costas Nakassis, Erin Moore, Cati Coe, Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg, and Lynn Thomas on our introductory essay. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for the University of Chicago Press who provided comments on the introduction, the individual chapters, and the book as a whole. Once again, David Brent has proved an excellent editorial guide as well as a tireless champion of African Studies at the University of Chicago Press; working with David and with Ellen Kladky has been a pleasure. Thanks also to Erin Moore for her painstaking work in preparing the volume for publication, to Steve Larue for help with the bibliography, to Linda Forman for her excellent copyediting, and to Kelsey Robbins for her careful reading of the proofs. Our respective families generously allowed us time away from home to work on the project. Last but not least, we wish to acknowledge our tremendous debt to our Malagasy and Mozambican interlocutors who shared their lives and their migration experiences with us. Their ways of thinking about and interacting with the world deeply inform the ideas developed in these pages. Without their kindness, generosity, and insight, this book would not exist.