Expelled from fortress Europe: Returned migrant associations in Bamako and the quest for cosmopolitan citizenship

Abstract

Based on ethnographic data this chapter discusses how the memories of awful deportation brought African migrants into Associations and provided them a real possibility to redefine their new identity. These Associations try to present, through constructed discourses and staging the dramas of deportation, a positive image of their members as the heroes who became victims of EU selfish migration policies. The new form of forced return is an evidence of a painful failure for all those who had once dreamed to reach Europe with the purpose of fulfilling their economic and social expectations. Particularly following questions are raised: (1) how did these Associations redefine the identity of deported migrants by denunciating EU migration policies? (2) How these Associations challenge the UE’s claim of human rights through staging their deportation ordeals? (3) And how their transitional status influenced their social life in Mali?.