Don’t ask, Don’t tell

While obligations towards their families, and aspirations to become successful men, or explore terra incognita explain in part my interlocutors’ decisions to migrate, their examples

19 ‘Vacation’ was often used by my participants as opposed to hard work abroad.

raise the questions, why did they not inform themselves better about the restricted working conditions abroad?

Transnational migration represents a big decision in people’s lives. It is a significant shift for most Senegalese people, which means -among other things- not going back to Senegal for years. Migrating outside Africa is also an expensive project to carry on with. The costs of crossing the Mediterranean Sea by boat can go from five hundred up to two thousand euros, and some of my informants have told me they paid close to five thousand to go to Argentina.

The cheapest represents almost seven months of minimum salaries in Senegal. It is a significant collective effort for anyone who migrates. According to my interlocutors, it is considered a privilege that not everybody can afford, therefore migration can be understood as a class privilege. More importantly, people risk their lives attempting to arrive on European shores and crossing irregular national borders.

Considering the relevance that migration represents, I asked myself, how is it possible that someone would not ask in-detail questions about possibilities abroad? Furthermore, why would a person abroad not at least warn about obstacles, hardships and possible suffering one might experience in the host country? Moreover, why would that person even disguise the truth about what he is doing abroad? Lastly, as mentioned above, not all of my interlocutors migrated without knowing what to expect. Who gets access to this information then?

In order to describe the interrelation between imaginaries and migration better, I draw on Salazar’s understanding of imaginaries as “meaning-making devices”. By using the term

‘device’, the author emphasizes that imaginaries are effective: they “(...) cognize and value the world” (2020:3) at the same time that they enable and mediate behaviour. Thus I argue that the practice of don’t ask-don’t tell is a way of putting imagination into practice, and at the same time, plays a key role in shaping potential migrants’ imaginations.

Next, I will draw on my participants’ opinions on the underlying logics for the mentioned practices. In the end, I will elaborate on the hypothesis that becoming a migrant entitles people to access more accurate information about life abroad.

Finding Out

The first time I heard about the practice that I have named don’t ask-don’t tell was during my initial interview with Ndiaga. He informed me that his older brother was commenting on the possibilities of harvesting oranges in the field of Spain. However, Ndiaga’s brother -who was living in Spain- did not warn him about the actual prospects of getting a job without a working permit. Moreover, when I dug into Ndiaga’s testimony, he neither asked his brother for details, nor knew what his brother was doing for a living in Spain. Ndiaga embarked to Europe imagining he would do as his brother commented.

When Ibrahim was in Senegal, he did not know what his brother’s job was in Argentina, nor did he ask him. He told me he was informed by his relative that he was doing some “selling”

and that Ibrahim would work with him. That was all the information he got. Ibrahim did not ask anything. My informant continued by telling me that he did not need to know what his brother’s job was because he was able to send a lot of money back to Senegal. That is the only thing he wanted to know. Ibrahim only needed to see the remittances sent by his brother to imagine that his relative was doing just fine abroad. Ibrahim has four uncles abroad, three in Italy and one in England. He never asked them about their profession. My interlocutor just heard that one is a taxi driver and the other works as a welder, both in Italy. For the rest, he does not know, and he did not ask either. He believes that everyone is doing fine, especially the one in England because they use the pound there.

Amhed also has two uncles in Italy. He knows both are working in a factory. He did not ask what kind of production or for any details about their positions. Moreover, he has relatives living in Argentina, that is how he decided to move there. Yet he never asked them what they were doing or what he would do for a living. He imagined then that Argentina would be “the same as Europe”. Therefore, he envisioned for him something similar to what his uncles were doing in Italy.

Moustafa presented a similar story to Ibrahim about an elder brother living in Argentina who asked him to work with him. This relative informed Moustafa that he was working in a store, nothing else. When I asked my interlocutor why his brother did not tell him that he was working as a street vendor, he replied that he would have refused to migrate if knowing that. Like most Senegalese people, Moustafa has relatives living in Europe. He commented that he has an uncle living in Italy and they maintain active contact. They have a good relationship. I asked if he

ever requested information regarding his job in Italy. Moustafa answered that his uncle is older than him, so he respects him a lot. Therefore, he would not ask about it. He just knows that his relative is doing fine in Italy, and that is enough.

Explanations

In my initial interview with Ndiaga, he commented that Senegalese don’t tell others about actual living conditions abroad, either because they are liars or because they might be ashamed of their jobs. Thierno told me that sometimes one could not be sure if the person requesting the information is doing it because he wants to migrate or because he wants to chusmear -to gossip around-. Then they will spread rumours in Senegal saying that “they [the migrants] pretend to have money, something like that, but they are starving there”. If one asks too many questions then, it could look like one just wants to defame you in Senegal, because as Ndiaga explained, the kind of jobs that Senegalese do abroad hold a low status in their society. In his own words:

Like what I just said recently, in my country I would not do street vending, and here I am doing it, and that is also what is good about migration. That you can always do many things that in your country you were a bit ashamed to do.

Ndiaga’s explanation is what Nieswand has named the “status paradox of migration” (2014).

This could be explained as upgrading one’s status in Senegal, by becoming a migrant who successfully provides for the household, but he does it by doing ‘low-class’ jobs abroad.

Parrenas calls this phenomenon “dislocation of contradictory class mobility”. She argues that

“(...) is a concrete effect of the larger structural forces of globalisation. It emerges from the unequal development of regions.” (2015:118). The next chapter will elaborate on how not giving information that could be shameful for the one abroad is strictly interwoven with self-representation and how migration is imagined.

As I kept hearing about this don’t ask-don’t tell practice, I found myself more and more puzzled. I felt that it was even hard for me to ask my interlocutors about this issue. Finally, I overcame my feelings and openly commented that some of their fellow nationals told me that they did not know or ask ‘anything’ before arriving and that some even felt fooled when encountering their destinations. Thierno explained to me the following:

(...) you know, as I just told you, the culture there [in Senegal] is very jealous, very jealous. I mean, there are different types of people there, you can have something, something good, I mean a job, a car, a house, and a person who always comes to visit you, you take him as a friend, but he can be your worst enemy, do you understand? There are witches²⁰ there, there is anything. Someone can make a witcher put a spell on you and tell the witcher ‘I want him to lose everything’, that makes him unlucky, and all that, do you understand? That's why things are not told.

It seemed that asking specific questions about other people’s lives is something not very common. Thierno mentioned that not asking specific questions is something they do. He added that you should not tell about your plans because they could be jinxed by just letting people know before achieving. He told me that his friends didn’t tell him, or anybody, that they were about to migrate. Thierno found out when they arrived at their destination. Just like his friends, Thierno also left Senegal without telling anyone but his mother and his uncle.

During an online interview with Mohamed, who was back in Senegal, I continued to inquire about this practice. He implied many times that ‘I know how the Senegalese are’, like if this was part of Senegalese people’s idiosyncrasy. I had to repeat a few times that I do not, and I wanted to know what he thought about it. Finally, Mohamed started to explain his point of view about asking questions on private life:

The thing is, in my way of thinking, I say that it is tradition, you know? If you ask many people, they feel things, they will think that you are very chusma [gossipy], you want to know things, you understand? We are not all the same [the Senegalese].

You understand what happens. For example, if I want to ask you something, I am going to ask you straight away, but some of us if you ask them, eh, it's culture, another custom, do you see? Things change. Some take it well, if you ask, is to

20 Research about witchcraft and sorcery in African societies have gained attention in the last decades. Although such practices are part of the ongoing life of many African societies (Ciekawy & Geschiere, 2014) I will not analyse meanings, origins and logics of Senegalese sorcery in this thesis. It would far exceed my academic aim;

moreover, it is an area of research that requires full attention. Superficial analysis of sorcery could risk misunderstanding and misrepresentation of ancient and complex practices and could contribute to the “(...) anthropological tradition of exoticizing Africa” (Stewart & Strathenr, 2014). Building on these lines, I will limit this research to understanding witchcraft and sorcery as my interlocutors mentioned: as a reason to avoid giving certain information of one’s private life because that information could be used against one through brujería.

know, some say that you are very gossipy, ‘why do you ask so much, for that reason?’, I am not very nosy, [we both laughed]

According to Mohamed, there is something cultural about this practice of not asking ‘too many’

questions. Wanting to know about certain aspects of other people’s lives can make you look gossipy, and following Thierno’s opinion, by looking gossipy (or asking many questions), some people might think that you want to put a spell on them. I want to highlight Mohamed’s remark about him not being nosy, meaning he does not ask many questions, but he will do it if he really wants to ask something. He underlined that “We are not all the same”. I understand his remark as a reminder of the flexibility, dynamics and challenges within cultural practices.

Moussa tried to shed some light on my thoughts by agreeing that you might be frowned upon if you ask too many questions to the person abroad, but it does not mean that people do not do it. In Moussa’s opinion, the person abroad might encounter a dilemma when asked, or even when wishing to tell without being requested to do so. For example, for some people, the situation is challenging abroad, the living conditions are precarious, they can suffer from exclusion, police persecution and being homesick. Despite all this, through considerable efforts and hard work, some Senegalese manage to send enough remittances for their relatives in Senegal to build houses and buy luxury goods. When asked about the possibility of work in the destination country, the contact person finds himself then in the quandary of just telling others that there is an actual possibility of work (or not) or being labelled as a liar. If people back in Senegal see the material achievements of the family thanks to the ‘migration money’, and then when the person abroad discloses information about the harsh living conditions in another country, it could look as if he is trying to discourage people from migrating because he is greedy, jealous or just does not want other people to succeed. In her study about the lives and mobility practises of Senegalese migrants in Buenos Aires, Vammen found that some of her interlocutors were filtering or hiding information regarding profitable locations to work within the city and throughout Argentina. Moreover, the author states that when warned about difficulties, most migrants would not believe their informants because, as Moussa also mentioned, they would think it was a way to dissuade them from good fortune (Vammen, 2017:243-244).

This situation could be a true puzzle compared with the transnational solidarity networks in which Senegalese migrants move around. As presented in Section 1.3, whereas there is a

trustworthy Senegalese, the potential migrant has the confidence to migrate towards that person and rely on the network’s solidarity. This is connected to the Senegalese concept of teranga, the idea of reciprocity that often represents a national signature. “Teranga is often translated as hospitality, but its implications stretch beyond the European notion of that word (...) they may alternately be sent from Senegal to live with relatives in other parts of Europe, relying again on the teranga of these relatives” (Gasparetti, 2011: 221-223). Considering the reliability of the transnational networks, one could ask: why is the information so scarce within them?

Although studying the relations and articulations between the practices of teranga and don’t ask-don’t tell would shed light on the complexity and dynamics of Senegalese migration, it far exceeds the aims and purpose of this research. Therefore, it will not be explored here.

As presented in Section 1.2, being a breadwinner and a ‘real man’ plays a crucial role in Senegalese’s masculinities (Nyamnjoh, 2010; Sinatti, 2014). If someone admits some sort of suffering or difficulty, his manhood can be challenged. As Thierno commented when asked about the hardships of migrating, “When you come to live [abroad], you spend two days ... or you eat from the garbage, that is okay, those are men's things, you know?”. Thierno made clear that encountering and overcoming difficulties is part of what being a man means. Bamba argued that “(...) it is true that many tell you ‘yes, there is work’ because they also believe that man can survive in any situation”. With “any situation”, Bamba referred to the dangerous journeys while crossing borders and the precarious conditions the Senegalese find themselves in when they go abroad; those should not stop a ‘true Senegalese man’ from migrating, especially if there is any kind of possibility to earn money and send it back to the family.

Thus, the practice of don’t ask-don’t tell is embedded with shared imaginaries that enables people to interpret what to ask, what not to ask, what to tell, what not to tell, when and how to do it. In this sense, managing what to ask and what to tell is a way of putting imagination into practice.

Who gets to know?

From my thirteen interlocutors, only two of them told me that before arriving in Argentina, they knew exactly what they would do for a living. Likewise, both expressed that their contact person informed them that most Senegalese are street vendors in Argentina. Therefore, they knew they would have to start doing that. My interlocutors are Fallou and Ndiaga. Both have done similar jobs abroad, the former in Morocco, the latter in Spain.

As mentioned above, it was Ndiaga’s story that sparked my curiosity about the don’t tell-don’t ask practice. A few days after he told me that his brother spoke about making a thousand euros per month by harvesting oranges in Spain, I went back to where he worked and asked him to have a second interview. During our conversation, he started telling me about the process of going to Argentina. He said he had an uncle living in La Plata, so he contacted him. Ndiaga narrated how his relative explained the situation, “He told me that ‘here we are street vendors, selling on the street’”. I asked him why he thinks this time he was more accurately informed that the time he migrated to Europe, Ndiaga said, “what happens is that sometimes those who go first do not really tell you what is there, they come [to Senegal] (...) They trick many guys into wanting to go”. I suggested that maybe after he became a migrant, his uncle felt more comfortable telling him what to expect. He seemed to agree and replied:

Maybe, because he knows that I have experience in migration and he knows that I was there in Europe and Africa [he migrated inside Africa too]. Europe is the best. So if I'm going to change everything for Latin America, I think that's why he explained the details much better to me, so that there is no confusion, I say, I think.

Ndiaga’s answer implies that his previous experience and the fact that he was in Europe, a ‘better place than Argentina’, entitled him to receive accurate information. Fallou never migrated to Europe before. He went to Morocco and then attempted to go to Libya, where he had to be rescued by the IOM in the Sahara Desert. He knew three trustworthy people living in Argentina, Moustafa and his brother, and a guy who worked with Fallou in Morocco as a street vendor. My interlocutor told me that the three of them explained that he would be a street vendor. Moustafa informed him that he was making more money than in Senegal. The only bad things were to withstand the cold weather and the clashes with local authorities. His other friend told him that “Morocco is more difficult” than Argentina, so it would be fine for him. I told him that sometimes other Senegalese explained that they were not informed about dangers or the jobs they will do abroad, so I found it surprising that he got such detailed information. He did not seem surprised about it, I asked him if he received more accurate information because he migrated before. He replied that it is probably, because he has experience living in very harsh conditions.

Based on my interviews, I conclude that once a Senegalese goes through the experience of being an irregular migrant and having to face the obstacles and hardships that come along with it, they ‘unveil the mysteries’ about life abroad. This way, they can talk like

‘equals’ to other migrants, enabling them to receive more accurate information than those who have not migrated yet. Thus, I conclude that migration is not only a way of doing but also becomes a way of knowing. Migrating, therefore, shapes imaginaries of potential life abroad by opening a new field of possibilities and information.