Introduction
In March 2011, Kofi Baffoe,Footnote 1 a twenty-seven-year-old Ghanaian construction worker, was evacuated from the Libyan civil war. He was flown to Accra where he was debriefed and received a small amount of money to pay for the ten-hour bus trip back to his home town. Otherwise, he came back with nothing more than the clothes he was wearing. His salary for the last six months was lost when the Libyan bank burned down, and his other belongings were confiscated by Libyan authorities in the airport. Kofi was not the only one in this situation: more than 20,000 Ghanaian labour migrants fled from Libya following the war. In Kofi's case, this was the second time he returned involuntarily and penniless to Ghana: in 2010 he was deported from Israel after six months in prison. Both returns were characterized by a sense of shame and social inadequacy; of being a burden to his family whom he had set out to support; and of being ‘stuck’ in life without progressing.
Kofi is one of the many migrants whose migration has been disrupted because of deportation or through emergency return from conflict. In this article, I examine the social and economic repercussions of such involuntary return in the context of high-risk and often irregular modes of migration through a case study on involuntary return from the civil war in Libya to Ghana. I use the concept of involuntary return to refer to relocation against the migrant's intention and will from a country of residence or sojourn to the migrant's homeland. I focus in particular on emergency return, such as evacuation and flight from conflict or migration crisis (Aghazarm et al. Reference Aghazarm, Quesada and Tishler2012; Siddiqui and Bhuiyan Reference Siddiqui and Bhuiyan2013) but also include deportation, which constitutes the most extreme mode of involuntary return.
Furthermore, I approach involuntary return as an incident in potentially continuous, if constrained and high-risk, migration practices rather than the end of the migration cycle. Indeed, much African migration is characterized by back-and-forth movements, periods of waiting for opportunities (Conlon Reference Conlon2011) or during entrapment (such as imprisonment or kidnapping), and often multiple departures and returns (cf. Schapendonk Reference Schapendonk2011). While involuntary return may constitute the termination of international migration, the livelihood-related, mainly low-skilled and high-risk migration that I discuss in this article tends to be constituted by multiple journeys. Nevertheless, I argue that ‘returning home’ to families and home towns, rather than being detained or removed to another location, constitutes a particular context, precisely because migrants face family and community expectations upon their return – no matter if that return is involuntary or well prepared. This is also why I find that a moral economy perspective is particularly fruitful for analysing this type of return.
My approach to involuntary return thus emphasizes the effects and practices of the relocation as they relate to the returnees, their families and local communities, rather than the legal category or mode of return. I am particularly interested in the interplay between the political economy of migration and the local moral economy, which I regard as two sets of analytical perspectives rather than two separate spheres. The former refers to political and economic structures that shape, constrain and facilitate migration – in this case especially employment opportunities and income inequalities in and between Ghana and Libya, restrictive mobility regimes, and the conflict in Libya; the latter explores norms of legitimate and illegitimate, laudable and deplorable practices and positions in relation to social and economic exchanges (Fassin Reference Fassin2009).
As outlined in the introduction to this themed issue, the moral economy concept dates back to the 1970s, when it was used in analyses of struggles and resistance relating to the emergence and consolidation of capitalist economy (Scott Reference Scott1976; Thompson Reference Thompson1971). Since then, the usages of the concept have been extended considerably, and it now often refers to norms and values in particular contexts (Berman and Lonsdale Reference Berman and Lonsdale1992; Fassin Reference Fassin2009). However, for the concept to maintain analytical distinction, I suggest that it is limited to an analysis of the ways in which norms and values are related to social and economic exchanges. In line with Fassin (Reference Fassin2009), I thus link the analysis of moral economy with that of political economy. But, in contrast to Fassin's extensive approach on wider societal changes, I concentrate on the social and economic dimension, here studied in the context of migration as a collective and individual livelihood strategy.
The article shows that involuntary return disrupts migration projects. These projects primarily concern earning money to sustain and ameliorate the living standards of the (extended or nuclear) family and/or to accumulate individual savings to invest in business, land or housing in Ghana. Especially for younger men, the latter aims relate to establishing themselves as independent, respectable and marriageable adults, while more mature men mainly travel to provide for their families. Migration and involuntary return thus have collective and individual aspects, which are embedded in local expectations, family reciprocities and ideals of masculinity. Returning empty-handed causes tensions in gender and family relations, demonstrating the ambivalence of family reciprocity and interdependency, not least for women who have stayed behind and have everyday responsibility for providing for their dependants. Likewise, this disturbs masculinity ideals that are related to adulthood, responsibility and accumulation. Hence, the article demonstrates how involuntary return, caused by conflict and restrictive mobility regimes, aggravates the life situation of men and women, who rely on migration as a livelihood strategy in contexts characterized by unemployment and economic crisis.
I base this argument on a case study in the Brong Ahafo Region in the western part of Ghana, where there is a long tradition of mainly irregular international migration to Libya and Europe. I undertook three periods of fieldwork: in February 2012, from November 2012 to April 2013, and again in March 2015, when I was based in a smaller rural town, here called Amanfo.Footnote 2 I interviewed forty-five involuntary return migrants – many had returned several times – of whom thirty-five had returned following the war in Libya in 2011. With two exceptions, all returnees were men, as cross-Saharan migration is an almost exclusively male phenomenon in Ghana. More than half of the returnees had returned one or more times from Libya prior to 2011, in many cases through deportation. Some of them had also lived and worked in – and in some cases been deported from – at least fifteen other countries in West and North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America. In addition, I interviewed family members of migrants and local authorities and conducted observation. While I draw on the entire data in this article, I particularly refer to two cases to give depth to the analysis.
The remaining part of the article is structured in the following way: I start by analysing the political economy of migration by introducing the history of Ghanaian migration to Libya and then move on to the context of Amanfo and elaborate on the migration history of Kofi. I then explore the local moral economy of involuntary return through an analysis of reciprocity, interdependency, conflicts in families, and masculinity ideals. Finally, I reflect upon the implications of high-risk migration and involuntary return for female-headed households.
Ghanaian migration to Libya
Ghana has a long history of migration of both a voluntary and a forced nature, with a mix of internal, regional and international movements (Akyeampong Reference Akyeampong2000), and has become a simultaneous sending, destination and transit country for migration since the late 1990s. The total number of Ghanaians living outside Ghana today is unknown but is estimated to be more than 1.5 million people (Quartey Reference Quartey2009). About 70 per cent of all international Ghanaian migrants live in the ECOWAS zone, followed by the US, the UK, Italy and Germany as other main destinations (ibid.). Recent Ghanaian emigration took off in the 1970s due to economic and political crisis. At the time, Nigeria was the main destination country, following the oil boom, with an estimated 1.2 to 2 million Ghanaians living in the country (Van Hear Reference Van Hear1998). In 1983, and again in 1985, all Ghanaians were expelled on very short notice. The expulsion constituted an example of mass involuntary return and coincided with an unusually tough year in Ghana, with drought, hunger and widespread bushfires that destroyed farm land and cocoa plantations – not least in the breadbasket Brong Ahafo Region. The expelled migrants thus returned to difficult situations and many opted to re-migrate. Côte d'Ivoire was the main destination for Ghanaian migration on the continent until the outbreak of conflict in 2002. Likewise, many went to Europe, North America and Libya.
Ghanaian migration to Libya started in the 1980s, following President Rawling's connections with Gaddafi and their common interest in Pan-Africanism (Bob-Milliar and Bob-Milliar Reference Bob-Milliar and Bob-Milliar2013). As a man from Amanfo explained, ‘Gaddafi used to come by road to Ghana and show off, so people connected him with wealth’, while another man added, ‘Some of the first travellers to Libya brought back tractors. We in Amanfo are farmers and cherish tractors, so it attracted a lot of people to go to Libya.’ Migration to Libya has been ongoing since then but took off in the 1990s, when Gaddafi actively promoted sub-Saharan migration, following the air and arms embargo imposed by the United Nations (UN) Security Council in 1992 (Bredeloup and Pliez Reference Bredeloup and Pliez2011; Hamood Reference Hamood2006). From then on a large number of primarily young men from Ghana and other sub-Saharan countries started to migrate to Libya, where the majority ended up doing manual work, such as masonry and construction work (UNDP 2011), or working as day labourers.Footnote 3
In 2004, Libyan legislation on irregular migration, smuggling and false documents was made more restrictive and its application enforced (Hamood Reference Hamood2006: 20). These restrictions were continued throughout the remaining part of the 2000s, partly in collaboration with European efforts to prevent irregular boat crossings of the Mediterranean to Europe through the externalization of border control and patrol in North Africa. Because of changing and restrictive visa policies, most Ghanaian migrants have entered Libya without papers and have either regularized their status subsequently (Bredeloup and Pliez Reference Bredeloup and Pliez2011: 8) or have stayed sans-papiers – and hence, in the latter case, they have found themselves in precarious security situations. Libya has indeed proven to be a reluctant migrant host country, expelling tens of thousands of migrants in response to economic crisis, political conflicts with their countries of origin, or irregular status. A total of 12,202 Ghanaian nationals were deported from Libya between 2000 and 2012.Footnote 4 In 2014, the number of deportees from Libya reached 1,415,Footnote 5 making Libya the state that deports the most Ghanaian migrants. Involuntary return from Libya to Ghana is thus not a new phenomenon and is related to both political instability and restrictive mobility regimes.
The situation in Libya deteriorated in early 2011, following the war and rumours that mercenaries from Mali and Chad were fighting for Gaddafi and the widespread portrayal of African migrants as a security threat in the Libyan media (DeVargas and Donzellia Reference DeVargas, Donzellia, Truong, Gasper, Handmaker and Bergh2014). Massacres and mass violence against sub-Saharan Africans in the country followed. Ghanaian and other migrants fled the country in what the International Organization for Migration (IOM) termed ‘the worst migration crisis seen in the region since the first Gulf War’ (Aghazarm et al. Reference Aghazarm, Quesada and Tishler2012: 5). About 790,000 migrants fled Libya into the neighbouring countries; 18,455 Ghanaians were officially repatriated by IOM and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), flown or bussed from Egypt, Tunisia and Niger to Accra; and an estimated additional 2,000 Ghanaians returned by their own means. Returnees report that the Libyan banks closed down during the conflict and that they therefore lost salaries deposited in the banks; many also had their belongings, such as mobile phones and laptops, stolen or confiscated by Libyan authorities or rebels before leaving Libya. In Accra, returnees were registered and debriefed by the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) and IOM, and, as described above, given money to cover the bus trip to their home towns (cf. Bob-Milliar and Bob-Milliar Reference Bob-Milliar and Bob-Milliar2013; UNDP 2011). Once the returnees had reached ‘home’, IOM, NADMO and the Ghanaian government expected that their families and home communities would support them.Footnote 6 Just over half of the returnees went to the Brong Ahafo Region; 800 went to the Amanfo District alone, followed by an estimated unregistered 200 returnees who had returned by their own means.Footnote 7
Amanfo
Amanfo is the capital of the Amanfo District, located in the Brong Ahafo Region.Footnote 8 The district has a population of about 95,000 of whom about 30,000 live in Amanfo town itself. The Twi-speaking Akan are the biggest ethnic group. The area is predominantly rural with low levels of educationFootnote 9 and agriculture is the most important livelihood, with more than 80 per cent of the labour force engaged in farming, including many town dwellers. Most farm holdings in the district are small,Footnote 10 with low yields and subsistence rather than commercial farming. Furthermore, as the population in Amanfo District is young and most households are large,Footnote 11 low incomes and poor living standards characterize many households. This is emphasized by the fact that almost 60 per cent of household income is spent on food consumption, despite the preponderance of farming, indicating that households are vulnerable in terms of livelihood shocks.
Many families therefore engage in several livelihood activities, supplementing farming with, for instance, petty trade, artisanal activities, menial jobs or migration. While Amanfo District has fertile land, erosion, decreasing soil quality and other kinds of environmental degradation are widespread, due to the overexploitation of farmland and frequent bushfires, a process that has been ongoing since the 1980s, according to one of the traditional authorities. Furthermore, farming beyond subsistence level requires capital to pay for hired labour, fertilizers, pesticides, and so on.
Hence, despite the accessibility of land, farming it is not necessarily an available or attractive livelihood, and unemployment is rife in the area. This is particularly so for the youth. Like elsewhere in Ghana and West Africa, many young people in Amanfo have little desire for the hard work of subsistence farming but are oriented towards more ‘urban’ livelihoods, such as trade or service (cf. Acquah and Ashong Reference Acquah and Ashong2013). But, as in the case of farming, money is needed to establish such livelihoods, whether to set up a business or pursue further schooling.
It is in this context that migration has become an established practice and livelihood strategy in Amanfo, with families (co-)funding the journey of a migrant, expecting them to send remittances. Pioneer migration to Libya started in the 1980s, following droughts, economic and political crisis, and not least the mass return of labour migrants from Nigeria. Since then, Amanfo has developed into a hub for international migration. The town is well known in Ghana for irregular and high-risk overland migration to Libya, undertaken primarily – but not exclusively – by young men looking for a fast, if risky, way of making money, ameliorating life ‘back home’, or moving onwards to Europe across the Mediterranean or to Israel via Egypt.
Today, 15 per cent of the inhabitants of Amanfo are estimated to be living abroad.Footnote 12 Walking around town, the importance of migration to Libya and Western countries is impossible to overlook. One only has to look at the difference in houses – the ubiquitous sign of a successful life in Ghana (van der Geest Reference van der Geest1998; Smith and Mazzucato Reference Smith and Mazzucato2009). While many townhouses are dilapidated, with old structures and tin roofs, there are a number of big houses in bright colours as well as smart hotels, almost all built by migrant money from Europe, North America or, sometimes, Libya. Similarly, the orientation to the outside world is visible in the names given to shops and spots (small food or drinking places), such as Ben Ghazi Cold Shop, Washington Spot, Cambridge International Secondary School, Napoli Furniture, Great Jamahiriya Hardware Store, and FC Barcelona Sports Bar. Visiting or returning migrants driving fancy cars, donating huge amounts of money to churches, or generally showing wealth is also widely seen as ‘proof’ that migration is a potentially profitable and relatively fast way out of the destitute life that would otherwise await most people in town with little education and/or demanding family responsibilities.
While people with regularized immigration papers, high incomes and/or desirable professional diplomas may travel with visas and by air to Western countries,Footnote 13 this is out of reach for most people in Amanfo. Fabricated visas and passports can be bought but they are both expensive and risky to use. Many aspiring migrants are cheated by ‘connection men’, as migration brokers are called in Ghana, or apprehended by border or immigration authorities before they enter their country of destination. Increasingly restrictive visa policies coupled with the intensification of border controls and the introduction of biometric passports thus makes migration to these destinations more difficult and expensive, except for a minority. Conversely, migration to Libya is less costly; in 2013, migrants would bring the equivalent of US$1,500 to US$2,000 to cover expenses during their journey.Footnote 14 The (sometimes self-proclaimed) authorities that migrants encounter on their way to the country are known to be more interested in receiving bribes than checking the validity of documents, meaning that a genuine passport is of little value. And finally, while living and working conditions in Libya are tough, there is work to be found and money to be made – or at least there was until the conflict escalated in 2011.Footnote 15
The situation in Amanfo has several implications. First, that high-risk overland migration to Libya is primarily undertaken by men from poorer households (though not the poorest ones) while those better off use regularized channels for international migration or orient themselves towards other, less risky destinations. Second, that involuntary return is a well-known phenomenon in Amanfo as migrants with irregular status have a high likelihood of deportation and expulsion and/or are more likely to travel to politically unpredictable countries with a higher risk for mass expulsion, such as from Nigeria in the 1980s and later from Libya.
Amanfo thus constitutes an extreme case ‘well-suited for getting a point across in an especially dramatic way’ (Flyvbjerg Reference Flyvbjerg2006: 229). The social and local effects of involuntary return are particularly distinct in this place because of the prominence of male high-risk migration as a livelihood strategy and the visibility of ‘successful’ migration, as well as the regular occurrence of return following conflict, mass expulsions and deportation. The story of Kofi, one of the many young men who have returned disillusioned and empty-handed from Libya, illustrates the social and economic tensions of such a situation.
‘It's not the kind of life I want to live’: Kofi's story
Kofi belongs to the third generation of international male migrants in his family. His grandfather travelled to Nigeria in the 1960s, built a house in Amanfo with the money he saved, and returned to be a farmer. Kofi's father, Papa Owusu, went to Nigeria in the late 1970s after marrying Kofi's mother, Maame Grace, but was expelled in 1983. The family was poor, living in one rented room, barely surviving from subsistence farming. After a few years, their farm burned down. Papa Owusu decided to travel again, this time to Libya, where he stayed for fifteen years, sending remittances to support his wife, children and other relatives as well as building a house in Amanfo.Footnote 16 In 2011, he was evacuated from the war, together with Kofi. Now Papa Owusu works as a farmer again. He is too old, he says, to travel. Money is short but at least he and his wife, Maame Grace, live in the big and comfortable house he built during his years in Libya.
Being a farmer, however, was never of interest to Kofi. Like so many other young men in Amanfo, Kofi did not want to spend his life toiling the soil, but dreamed about touring the world as a footballer. However, he was never discovered, as he said, and he learned steel bending for a living. When he was twenty years old, he decided to travel to Libya to help out his parents and establish a small start-up capital for his own future. Papa Owusu paid for the journey. After three years, Kofi decided to leave Libya to go to Israel and find more prosperous work. His father was furious but Kofi's mind was made up. He used his savings to pay for the trip but was caught at the Egyptian–Israeli border and imprisoned.
After six months, Kofi was deported from Israel to Ghana. First he spent a month with his sister in Accra, feeling depressed. ‘My sister would console me and sometimes she gave me money,’ Kofi said. He continued: ‘But I didn't feel like taking it. You have travelled and you're still collecting money from your sister.’ In the end, Kofi had to face Maame Grace in Amanfo. He stayed in the house with his mother but none of them had any money, and Kofi sometimes had to wait until evening before eating. The atmosphere was not good. He, who had travelled to Israel against his parents’ wishes, had lost his entire savings earned from his hard work in Libya and returned to be a burden on the family. Furthermore, Maame Grace had taken over the responsibility of two adolescent girls, following the premature death of one of her sisters. Having to feed her grown-up son was not a welcome addition to her responsibilities, and after nine months, Kofi decided to go to Libya again.
This time Kofi financed his trip by being a connection man and guide for a small group of migrants from Amanfo, taking his younger brother as well, who succeeded in going to Israel. Kofi found work in the same Libyan company as before. Then the war broke out. At first, Kofi wanted to stay, unwilling to return empty-handed again. However, the conflict deteriorated and Kofi, his father and thousands of other migrants had to leave their savings deposited in Libyan banks and return without any money or belongings. When I first met Kofi, he had been back for less than a year and described his situation like this:
So I came back empty-handed. Again. I had nothing. I cried. I came back home but I have nothing to start my life. There is nothing here, no business. People talk about you if you come back empty-handed, insulting you. So you want to leave and get some peace of mind … So I just sit in my room and sleep or watch TV. I don't go out much. Even if they know the war, they expect you to bring something and ask ‘What did you bring?’ I cannot pay the school fees of my nieces and nephews any longer, so they don't go to school but stay home. I am not comfortable; it's not the kind of life I want to live.
Now Kofi was waiting, hoping for change. While his grandfather and father had succeeded in building their own houses with their migrant money, Kofi had lost all his savings and had gained only a television and a stereo from his three migrations. He was not comfortable, as he said, ‘hiding’ in his room to avoid exposure to humiliation and public ridicule from the townspeople, reminding him about his failure. Kofi hence spent a lot of time ruminating about his future. However, he always came back to the fact that he does not have any start-up capital for establishing a small business or for going back to school. Kofi felt confused and ‘stuck’ in life, a failure in his own eyes as well as from the perspective of his surroundings. His sense of powerlessness can be understood at a very practical level but also as an expression of existential immobility, as a feeling of not progressing in life (Hage Reference Hage2009). He did not know how to establish a viable livelihood and he felt disconnected from the world (Ferguson Reference Ferguson, Geschiere, Meyer and Pels2008; Lucht Reference Lucht2011), not knowing how to get on with his life.
A moral economy of migration
The story of Kofi and his father are embedded in the changing political economies of migration, shaped by political conflict as well as by restrictive mobility regimes. Their situation resembles those of other returnees from Libya for whom high-risk international migration constitutes a livelihood strategy employed in periods when other livelihood opportunities are absent or unattractive, and for whom international migration to destinations such as Europe, USA or Israel through regular means is impossible. Migrating due to poverty, unemployment and family responsibilities, and in the hope of saving enough money to build a house or start a small business, their migration projects are embedded in sometimes contentious gender and family relations, decisions and obligations. Indeed, Kofi and other interviewed returnees described the main reason for their migration as helping out their families in relation to food security, school fees, or the renovation or construction of houses by sending remittances (cf. UNDP 2011; Acquah and Ashong Reference Acquah and Ashong2013). While life and working conditions in Libya were harsh, often characterized by abuse, lack of payment and the risk of violence, imprisonment and deportation, returnees also described the opportunity for making good money to support their families and establish themselves in Ghana. Most of them emphasized how such money cannot easily be made in Ghana, or at least not so fast, and they sometimes longed for the tough but profitable days in Libya. The income inequality between Ghana and Libya, Europe and other places was thus framing their migration in very direct ways. As Kofi said, with some bitterness, ‘There is nothing here, no business.’
The sudden return and cessation of remittances caused financial problems in households throughout Amanfo in relation to food security, educational or health expenses. Conflicts in families followed, due to the scarcity of food and their lower income, meaning that expenses for education, health and investment had to be put on hold or abandoned. The fact that mass return took place in March, during the dry season, further aggravated the situation, as returnees could not find work in agriculture. Community leaders and NGO representatives in Amanfo explained how the level of theft went up – this was rumoured to be caused by desperate and broke returnees – while economic activities and school attendance dropped because of dwindling remittances. Involuntary return thus created social and economic tensions in families and in Amanfo more generally, reflecting the importance of migration to Libya as a livelihood strategy for relatively destitute families and households but also its volatile nature.
To understand the collective repercussions of involuntary return, it is necessary to situate it within wider family practices. In Ghana, and more generally in West Africa, migration is part and parcel of family practices and moral obligations in which migrants, in their capacity as family members, are expected to take care of their younger siblings, elderly parents and, often, parts of the extended family – whether living or travelling within the country, in the region, or further afield (Cassiman Reference Cassiman2010; Geschiere and Gugler Reference Geschiere and Gugler1998; MacLean Reference MacLean2010; Mazzucato Reference Mazzucato2011; Piot Reference Piot1999). The migration of one family member is often (co-)financed by other family members or patrons, functioning as a kind of collective investment through the pooling of funds, the selling or mortgaging of assets, or loans. Migrants, in turn, are expected to support family members and bring money, gifts and consumer goods when they return (Abdul-Korah Reference Abdul-Korah2011; Reference Abdul-Korah2006; Awedoba and Hahn Reference Awedoba and Hahn2014; Kabki et al. Reference Kabki, Mazzucato and Appiah2004; Kleist Reference Kleist, Åkesson and Baaz2015; Nieswand Reference Nieswand2013). The moral economy of migration is thus based on reciprocity over time and space in extended families and often across generations. It can be seen as part of long-term implicit contracts between senior and better-resourced family and household members and others (Whitehead Reference Whitehead2002); it has uncertain outcomes, possible conflicts, but expectations of reciprocation of support over time.
Reciprocal relations were also central in Amanfo. All the interviewed return migrants belong to the matrilineal Akan, where family ideals revolve around the importance of motherhood, and mutual support within families remains pertinent (Adjaye and Aborampah Reference Adjaye and Aborampah2008; Clark Reference Clark2000; Fortes Reference Fortes and Fortes1963). Indeed, there is no word for the nuclear family in Twi; rather, the term abusua is used, referring to the matrilineal unit – the descendants of one woman: her children, her daughters’ children, and her granddaughters’ children (Clark Reference Clark2000: 718) – although the concept may also refer more broadly to the wider extended family (MacLean Reference MacLean2010: 48). Likewise, the relationship to a woman's uterine brothers is of special importance, as maternal uncles – w⊃fa in Twi – traditionally hold a special responsibility for their nephews and nieces (Fortes Reference Fortes and Fortes1963).
However, family relations and ideals are not static. As Fortes already noted in 1963, there are considerable differences between family arrangements and practices in different locations. Similarly, Clark observes how ‘kinship ideals endorse a very high degree of flexibility and negotiability’ (Reference Clark2000: 718).Footnote 17 Although reciprocity is a central ideal and practice, this does not imply a model of symmetrical family relations in the sense of specific individuals exchanging (more or less) equivalent value or support over time (cf. MacLean Reference MacLean2010). Extended families are neither harmonious entities, nor are all decisions concerning the family made collectively or in agreement – whether in relation to migration or not. Rather, like most other families, they are characterized by power struggles and conflicts (cf. Kea Reference Kea2013). Kofi's conflict with his father regarding his decision to go to Israel and the tense relationship with his mother after deportation are a case in point.
Furthermore, autonomy and economic independence are widely described as important cultural values among the Akan. To have an independent household and to own a house are common aspirations among men and women, and all adults are expected to earn most of their livelihoods themselves (Fortes Reference Fortes and Fortes1963). Nevertheless, masculinity ideals explicitly link notions of dignity and autonomy with the accumulation of wealth and capital (Arhin Reference Arhin1983; Clark Reference Clark2000; Fortes Reference Fortes and Fortes1963; Wong Reference Wong2013). These ideals relate to the ability to buy land, own a house, invest in a business or pay school fees, while mothers are seen as having the main responsibility for daily subsistence. Hence cultural gender ideals prescribe that both women and men are breadwinners (Clark Reference Clark2000) and contribute to their families and children, but respectable and desirable masculinity is additionally related to accumulation. The preponderance of male high-risk migration in Amanfo can be seen as a way of fulfilling such expectations in situations in which few other options are open or seen as realistic or attractive.
It is important to remember, however, that such practices and responses are embedded in uncertainty (cf. Kleist and Thorsen Reference Kleist and Thorsen2017). Migration projects may succeed or fail. A useful approach to understand this volatility is as an expression of vital conjunctures: that is, ‘socially structured zone[s] of possibility that [emerge] around specific periods of potential transformation’ (Johnson-Hanks Reference Johnson-Hanks2002: 871). As Johnson-Hanks points out, vital conjunctures are characterized by future orientation and hold no guarantee of positive outcomes or transformations. Indeed, as Kofi's and many other returnees’ stories demonstrate, migration from Amanfo to Libya constitutes unstable (and often recurring) endeavours, driven by a sense of necessity and aspiration; they are hopeful rather than predetermined projects.
‘You're a man, you should give something’: family and gender relations after return
The moral economy of migration and involuntary return in Amanfo is embedded in ideals of masculinity and reciprocity practices, as described above. In addition to the hope of fast money, returnees and their families explained how high-risk overland migration is a response to the absence of opportunities in Ghana. It is a risky and hard way to earn money, motivated by the opportunity for employment in (comparatively) high-income economies. Most returnees emphasized the necessity and hardship of their migrations, explicitly distancing themselves from notions of adventure known from migration from Francophone West Africa (Bredeloup Reference Bredeloup2013; Jónsson Reference Jónsson2008), which they perceived as carefree and aimless travelling.Footnote 18 Rather, they told of the fears and suffering en route, such as thirst, sunstroke, getting lost, or being assaulted, kidnapped or imprisoned (cf. Amnesty International Reference International2015). Many talked about travelling companions who died of exhaustion, accidents or assault, and of passing mummified bodies of fellow migrants who did not make it. Kofi noted that one of the reasons why so few Ghanaian women engage in overland migration – and generally are not encouraged to travel in this way – is the high risk of gang rape by corrupt soldiers, thugs or rebels, which, in addition to the suffering of rape itself, slows down the speed of travelling for the entire group. Women were also seen as less able to help push vehicles if they got stuck in the desert, and hence less attractive travel companions.
The interlocutors thus linked high-risk overland migration and masculinity to two factors: the strength needed to traverse the desert; and the material and social effects of successful migration, such as the ability to send remittances and return with savings and gifts. Having material resources enables investment in social relations (Awedoba and Hahn Reference Awedoba and Hahn2014; Thorsen Reference Thorsen, Angela and Giorgia2014), such as the family economy and proper male adulthood through saving money for a house, a business and marriage. Returning empty-handed implies a failure to realize these goals, of having suffered to no avail. It thus has both material and existential aspects. Kofi and several other of the returnees reacted by isolating themselves and ‘feeling down’. However, from the point of view of family members and townspeople more broadly in Amanfo, this kind of behaviour was problematic and unsuitable for young, able-bodied men. Kofi recalled how his parents gave him a lesson on acting like a real man in difficult times:
My father told me that I am a man, such things happen in life. I should just focus on what I am doing and I should fight hard, you understand. Not just sit down and do nothing. Because then I will go down, down, down. But I should stand up as a man and face whatever consequences or hardship that will come.
While Papa Owusu linked masculinity with strength and toughness during difficult times, Maame Grace reproached Kofi for not contributing to the household: ‘You're a man, you have to do something. You should give food. You should give something.’ She thereby signalled how proper manhood is related to proactivity and the ability to provide. While the successful migrant is widely expected to return as ‘an “upper class” citizen, respected for his/her wealth’ (Akyeampong Reference Akyeampong2000: 187), Kofi could not even contribute to his own food. The failure of provision is linked to notions of threatened and undignified masculinity (Ampofo and Boateng Reference Ampofo, Boateng, Shefer, Ratele, Strebel, Shabalala and Buikema2007; Sinatti Reference Sinatti, Truong, Gasper, Handmaker and Bergh2014), violating norms of reciprocity implicit in the moral economy, as well as constituting an economic problem in poor families.
Indeed, for Maame Grace and other women with migrant sons, husbands or brothers, problems of providing for their families were very real both during their migration and after involuntary return. As indicated above, the masculinity ideal of the male provider does not imply that women are not breadwinners. Certainly, one implication of high-risk international migration as a livelihood strategy, mainly undertaken by men, is the many female-headed households in Amanfo and the intensification of women's breadwinning responsibilities. Women continue to provide for their children and other dependants whether their migrant husbands, brothers or sons send remittances or not. While remittances may constitute valuable support, they are not guaranteed but depend on the outcome of migration projects as well as personal circumstances. When migration projects fail or are disrupted, the often collective investment is lost, and this may have dire consequences for the household; likewise, migrants’ families are affected by the hazards in or en route to Libya through the delay or termination of remittances, involuntary return, or the loss of loved ones.
Certainly, when I asked Maame Grace about her thoughts on migration, she explained how her life has been characterized by anxiety for the safety of her husband and sons as well as worries over how to feed her children and pay their school fees. ‘I went through a lot of suffering,’ she explained, ‘What to eat, what to do. I had money problems all the time.’ Providing for two of her sister's children had made her situation even more difficult. But most of all Kofi's deportation from Israel and, just one and a half years later, the evacuation of Papa Owusu and Kofi from Libya added to her problems. She said:
I am not feeling happy. It's very hard for me because my husband came home with nothing. I don't have a job either so it's difficult for us to take care of the family and the rest of the children … Poverty in Ghana has led to all these problems. If your family does not have money, they will do whatever they have to do and go to wherever they have to go to get money. Some people go to the extent of dying in the desert. Travelling [migration] is not a good thing but we are forcing ourselves to survive, that is the main point.
Maame Grace thus expressed her disillusion with migration as a livelihood strategy when migrants return empty-handed and involuntarily. She and Papa Owusu were now surviving through subsistence farming, Maame Grace's meagre income from petty trade, and occasional remittances from Kofi's brother in Israel. As she pointed out, migration to Libya is embedded in poverty, and involuntary return aggravates poverty. The moral economy of migration therefore has clear material dimensions: the struggle to ‘get by’ – and possibly improve life – in a situation of poverty and global economic inequality.
That involuntary and untimely return has consequences for entire families is also highlighted in other studies of emergency return (Siddiqui and Bhuiyan Reference Siddiqui and Bhuiyan2013; UNDP 2011; Acquah and Ashong Reference Acquah and Ashong2013) and of post-deportation around the world, describing how involuntary return migrants depend on their relatives for housing, food and cash (Alpes Reference Alpes2017; Brotherton and Barrios Reference Brotherton and Barrios2009; Drotbohm Reference Drotbohm2014; Kleist Reference Kleist, Kleist and Thorsen2017; Peutz Reference Peutz, De Genova and Peutz2010; Schuster and Majidi Reference Schuster and Majidi2013; Sørensen Reference Sørensen2011; Tiilikainen Reference Tiilikainen2011). Deportation from the US to Somaliland, for instance, has been described as marked by shame and failure when deportees fail ‘to live up to their own and their relatives’ expectation of a prosperous and promising return’, as ‘a double disgrace’ (Peutz Reference Peutz, De Genova and Peutz2010: 387).
The perception that involuntary return migrants constitute a burden for their families was also found in Amanfo, as indicated above. When existing livelihood strategies are interrupted, remittances halted, and migrants turn from being remitters to recipients, migrant families are hit by a double strain: fewer resources in combination with more expenses. Many involuntary returnees were disappointed by what they considered to be a low degree of support from their families or felt that they were shamed for returning empty-handed, especially by other townspeople in Amanfo. Yet I did not hear about anybody being actually rejected by their family. Writing about Burkinabe adolescent return migrants, Thorsen states that ‘defaulting [from reciprocal ties] neither breaks family relations nor obliterates the possibility of being seen as a “good person”’ (Reference Thorsen, Angela and Giorgia2014: 81). While a similar elasticity of reciprocity could be found in Amanfo, it often coexisted with collective and individual shame as well as outspoken conflicts. The case of Maame Afia and her brother Opuku illustrates this tension.
‘If I don't support him, who will?’: the ambivalence of reciprocity and interdependency
Maame Afia was a woman in her early thirties and the mother of three children. Her husband lived in Accra and she stayed in a rented house in Amanfo with her mother and some of her siblings. She used to be a charcoal trader, having a decent if not prosperous business, touring markets in the area. Her business ended abruptly following the involuntary return of her brother, Opuku, in 2011. Opuku, a trained painter, went to Libya in 2009 because, as he explained, ‘We are eight in the family and I am the second eldest among the boys so I have a lot of responsibility to take care of, and the work here [in Amanfo] was not helpful.’ Finding work as a mason, he sent Maame Afia remittances to take care of the family and supplement the money she made with her trade. When the civil war broke out, he returned empty-handed, much to Maame Afia's simultaneous relief and worry. She recalled:
My brother was very helpful to us [when he was in Libya] and also sent us money to buy a plot of land for him. But then the war started and they were all deported. We prayed hard that he should come home. First he didn't want to come but then he came back. He came back with nothing but at least he was alive … It was very difficult. I had to give him money and now I have no money for my trade.
Explaining evacuation from Libya as deportation, Maame Afia emphasized the enforced nature of her brother's return. She also highlighted the considerable ambivalence of her own situation: relief that her brother was alive, and anxiety and suffering following his return to unemployment. On the one hand, she was happy that they could now ‘struggle together’; on the other, she had to give up her trade as she did not have any money to purchase charcoal to sell. All Maame Afia's money was now spent on food and school fees and she had started carrying cement on a building site for a living, working ten hours every day. Meanwhile, her brother stayed in the house because he could not find work within his profession. When asked how she felt about providing for her brother, Maame Afia explained: ‘He is my brother, so I don't mind it. He is the only one I have here and if I don't support him, who will do it?’ However, she also added that she was worried that her brother would turn to stealing if he did not have anything to eat. For Maame Afia this would be extremely shameful, as ‘they'll mention the family name … and disgrace the whole family. What can I do?’
Maame Afia was thus caught in a moral economy dilemma. Her situation accentuates interdependency and affection between siblings but it also highlights the tensions and strain that such ideals and practices may entail. She was constantly tired from the strains of hard physical work and deeply worried about her economic situation and future, barely able to let her children continue their schooling. Still, rather than letting Opuku struggle for himself, she supported her brother and nurtured her relationship with him, as he had previously supported her and may do again. This affection, however, was tested by the underlying (imagined or perhaps uttered) threat of Opuku stealing and hence disgracing her and the family, reflecting the rumours of returnees’ criminal tendencies.
Opuku was not happy about the situation either. He explained the predicament of returning empty-handed – without the desired capital to build a house or the means to look after his family – and the shame of his sister providing for him. ‘It is a big blow for me as a man,’ Opuku explained. He continued:
We are facing a lot of problems because I came back empty-handed and business is not good. My family was expecting more of me. Also I wanted to build a house but my dreams did not come through. Now my dream is to start a new life again and look after my family and take the responsibilities. What puts me down is I was expecting to do a lot for myself and my family. If I remember that, I become sad.
Opuku was thus not living up to the masculinity ideal of supporting his family, let alone of accumulating wealth (Arhin Reference Arhin1983; Clark Reference Clark2000; Wong Reference Wong2013). He had disappointed his family, in particular Maame Afia and her children, of whom he, as the maternal uncle – w⊃fa – should take particular care, just like Kofi was embarrassed about accepting help from his sister. While Opuku was ready to go to Libya again, once things cooled down and the security situation permitted it, he was not ready to take up unskilled work in Amanfo as Maame Afia did. And, like Kofi, the disappointment of unfulfilled ambitions caused social isolation and dependency on his closest family.
The stories of Maame Afia, Opuku, Kofi and his parents demonstrate the widespread tensions between the collective and individual nature of disrupted migration projects, their expected outcomes, and the difficulties of returning empty-handed for both migrants and their families. It also demonstrates that reciprocity and interdependency are ambivalent phenomena that can cause significant social and economic frictions and tensions in families, not least in relation to high-risk and irregular migration. Both men and women, migrants and ‘stayers’, lose when migration projects are disrupted. When I asked Maame Afia what she thought about migration, she firmly said: ‘It's not good. When you travel and they send you home before you are ready, that's not good.’ Like Maame Grace, Maame Afia had thus become disenchanted with migration as a possible livelihood strategy while both Kofi and Opuku considered re-migrating, perhaps as a way of reinstituting their masculinity as a provider – or, at least, as somebody who tries.
Conclusion: disrupted migration projects
In this article I have examined involuntary return to Ghana from Libya, exploring how it is perceived and handled by returnees and their families in the context of economic crisis and vulnerability prompted by conflict and restrictive mobility regimes. I have approached this question through a moral economy perspective. While this concept is often used in a general way as a shortcut for norms and values more broadly, I advocate for a more limited focus on the moral aspects of social and economic exchanges – in this case migration as a livelihood strategy – and of how local norms and values are shaped by the political economy of migration.
The main argument of the article is that involuntary return constitutes a disruption of migration projects. Return to the home town – rather than being detained or stuck en route – constitutes a particular context with an emphasis on the social and economic expectations towards the returnee. My argument can be divided into three parts, highlighting different effects of the moral economy of involuntary return: first, the fact that involuntary return does not constitute a priori termination of migration; second, the ambivalence of reciprocity and interdependency in families; and third, challenged ideals of masculinity. Below, I go through these arguments in more detail.
First, I have shown that, in the eyes of returnees and their families, the legal mode of return is less important than the livelihood implications following return (cf. Alpes Reference Alpes2017). People in Amanfo often talked about deportation when referring to evacuation from the civil war in Libya, emphasizing the enforced dimension. Furthermore, many migrants engage in multiple migration projects, departing and returning several times during their lifetime, and re-migration after deportation is very common. Likewise, involuntary return does not constitute the end of the migration cycle; it is rather a disruption of potentially – but not necessarily – ongoing mobility. To examine involuntary return from a moral economy perspective, we thus need to include different moments in the migration trajectories rather than a singular point in time and to pay attention to vital conjunctures (Johnson-Hanks Reference Johnson-Hanks2002) that may lead to different life situations rather than predefined outcomes.
Second, I argue that a key characteristic of the moral economy of involuntary return is the importance – but also the ambivalence – of reciprocity and interdependency. The volatile nature of migration and mobile livelihoods implies that the position of remitter and recipient are unstable and can change several times during a lifetime – and even during one migration project – as when family members in Ghana wire money to migrants as so-called reversed remittances (Mazzucato Reference Mazzucato2011). Likewise, families support involuntary return migrants after their return. In such cases, (former) migrants become recipients of support, demonstrating the elasticity of interdependency within families (Thorsen Reference Thorsen, Angela and Giorgia2014; Whitehead Reference Whitehead2002; Whitehead and Kabeer Reference Whitehead and Kabeer2001). However, involuntary return also causes considerable conflict and economic strain, especially in poor families where remittances play a central part in food security and education. For female-headed households and other female providers in migrant families, staying at home entails prolonged periods of time without practical support or remittances, while maintaining responsibility for their dependants. Women also often have to bear the brunt when their migrant husbands, sons or fathers return empty-handed, or when migration projects do not pay off or fail in other ways, providing for their families in whatever way they can, sometimes at the expense of their own livelihoods and well-being. Hence, while reciprocity and interdependency are elastic phenomena, they do not necessarily imply equal or fair social and economic exchanges.
Third, I have demonstrated the pertinence of ideals of gender relations in the moral economy of migration, especially in relation to masculinity ideals. High-risk overland migration to Libya is associated with male endurance and strength as a necessary evil, not as an adventure. It can be perceived as a means to realize hegemonic masculinity ideals (Connell Reference Connell, Kimmel, Hearn and Connell2005) of provision and accumulation and therefore to enable investment in social relations, including becoming a proper and respectable adult man. Returning empty-handed implies a failure in realizing these ideals, with the added dimension of having suffered to no avail while crossing the desert, during the civil war in Libya, in detention, and so on. It is thus also an existential crisis. While the elasticity of family relations enables survival after evacuation or deportation, involuntary return is still seen as disgraceful and as a sign of undignified masculinity. Indeed, the talk and practice of re-migration to Libya can be seen as a way of asserting and restoring masculinity.
Finally, I have shown how the moral economy of migration is affected by global, regional and local transformations and crises, such as mass deportations, civil war, and the implementation of restrictive immigration policies and border control in destination countries – by the political economy of migration, in short. The likelihood of involuntary return is particularly high in relation to irregular and high-risk modes of migration and has economic, social and existential repercussions for migrants and their families, especially those who are already in vulnerable situations. Hence, in addition to the ‘usual’ effects of stratified globalization and inequality, such as economic crisis and unemployment, reliance on livelihood migration to areas characterized by conflict and restrictive mobility regimes may have dire effects for migrants and their families. Involuntary return thus aggravates and reproduces local and global inequalities.
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my gratitude to interlocutors in Ghana for their time and help. Earlier versions of the article have been presented at the conferences ‘Return Migration and Transnationalism’ (PRIO, Oslo, September 2012) and ‘Reconfiguring Border and Mobility in Times of Crisis’ (DIIS, Copenhagen, September 2012) as well as at the Nordic Migration Conference at the University of Copenhagen in August 2014 and to colleagues at DIIS in May 2014. I thank the participants, my colleagues, two anonymous peer reviewers for Africa and Dorte Thorsen for constructive feedback. The research was funded by a grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research – Culture and Communication.
