Migrants in the Plantation Economy in Côte d’Ivoire: A Historical Perspective

Abstract

AbstractThe chapter is a contribution to deepening knowledge on the historical trajectories of migration in Côte d’Ivoire. Based on a critical review of documents and literature, the chapter highlights the different waves of migration into Côte d’Ivoire. Both colonial and post-colonial coercive and attractive migration policies created the country as an important migration hub in West Africa. We situate the development of the cash crop economy in Côte d’Ivoire and its 20 years economic boom between 1960s and early 1980s, within the history of labour migrations into the country and the later crises that ensued as a result. While the development of the Ivorian economy was the driver for the policies during the period, the colonial era labour movements into the area hinged on repressive labour policies while the latter period was an attractive open door policy which included favourable land, citizenship and voting right grants to migrants. We reflected on how demographic growth and economic recession of the 1990s blurred this dynamic, thus leading to a change in the relationship between indigenes and migrants. The situation has led to a rigidity of Ivorian laws that cumulated in military, political and post electoral crises and civil strife thereby putting a brake on immigration. We reflected on the accentuation of migrant flows and transfers into the country in the recent Ivoirian migration and civic discourse and narratives which silences the contribution of migrants to the economic development of Côte d’Ivoire and the historical foundations of immigration and of a strong presence of foreign labour in the country. This we argue has ramifications for the management of migration in the country.