Les relations familiales au prisme de l’échec migratoire : les affects, les attentes, les responsabilités (région de Kolda, sud-Sénégal, 2017-2023) - Family relations through the lens of the migration impasse : affects, expectations, responsibilities (Kolda region, Southern Senegal, 2017-2023)

In the context of the southern Senegalese region of Kolda, irregular migration towards Eu-rope is viewed through the lens of involuntary return and the disruption of the domestic moral economy. Ethnographic and historical data spanning 2017 to 2023 serve to question the con-ventional dichotomies of voluntary versus forced repatriation, prompting an examination of the dynamic reconfiguration of familial affects, expectations, and responsabilities engendered by returns under strain. Adopting a perspective that ‘de-migrantizes’ mobility resituates the migra-tory episode within a broader continuum of social existence, demonstrating how departure and return are embedded in protracted negotiations of belonging. Foregrounding the circulation of affects – namely shame, guilt, and resilient hope – prioritizes the temporality of life trajectories over the spatiality of border crossing. Such an approach illuminates the dynamic processes of meaning-making that contest and redefine the boundaries of the family in this region of Senegal.