Vignette d'image

Bolay, Matthieu

Nom
Bolay, Matthieu
Affiliation principale
Fonction
Ancien.ne collaborateur.trice
Identifiants
https://libra.unine.ch/handle/123456789/675

Résultat de la recherche

Filtres

311
3
3
Réinitialiser les filtres

Paramètres

Voici les éléments 1 - 3 sur 3
  • Publication
    Restriction temporaire
    The conceptual limits of the ‘migration journey’. De-exceptionalising mobility in the context of West African trajectories
    (2020-9-2)
    Schapendonk, Joris
    ;
    Bolay, Matthieu 
    ;
    Dahinden, Janine 
    The ‘migration journey’ has proven to be a fruitful lens to question the simplistic notion that the outcome of migration solely depends on a momentous go/no-go decision in the countries of origin. At the same time, we argue that the normative/sedentarist principles of migration studies produce the risk to approach the journey as an exceptional phase of mobility, in-between presumed place-based lives. This paper therefore aims to explore the conceptual limits of the migration journey literature. To challenge the notion that the migration journey is fundamentally different from pre- and post-migratory mobilities, we combine two empirical research projects that have followed the im/mobility trajectories of West Africans. The first project focuses on the trajectories of itinerant gold miners within West Africa, the second concentrates on the im/mobility of West Africans within Europe. By juxtaposing the empirical insights of these seemingly different contexts, we stress the need to embed migratory movements in a continuous field of mobility practices across spaces in Africa and Europe. This results in our plea for a research agenda that does not see ‘migrancy’ as a pre-given marker of difference, but as a normative artefact of mobility regimes.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    When miners become “foreigners”: Competing categorizations within gold mining spaces in Guinea
    (2014)
    Bolay, Matthieu 
    Drawing on ethnographic research and problem-centered interviews in Guinean mining areas, this paper presents a comparative reading of the conflicting conceptions of what constitutes a “mining community.” First, I explore how independent artisanal miners describe and identify their activity. The weight of autochthony conventions is discussed concerning their insertion both in the mining fields and in their living locations. Second, I focus the case study on how the corporate social responsibility (CSR) interventions toward the mining community, commissioned by a gold mining company in Guinea, are interpreted by the artisanal miners. The analysis of the deployed discourses and related interventions delineate what is defined as the mining community in CSR programs, and how these interventions shape new understandings of the company׳s territory among the miners.
    Using a boundary work approach, the paper shows how CSR interventions symbolically transpose the spatial concession border into symbolic and social boundaries among the artisanal mineworkers. CSR discourses and interventions transform “trespassers” into “foreigners”, as opposed to “natives”, who are often viewed as “traditional sedentary workers” by the mining company. In doing this, CSR programs reinforce and standardize autochthony-based relations, and extend autochthony boundaries in all segments of the gold mining socio-technical system. The attachment of these initially separated categories creates an idealized figure of “traditional” artisanal mining, while also stigmatizing the itinerant artisanal miners. As a consequence, I will discuss the emergence of conflict situations regarding access to mining spaces and resources within the surrounding villages.