Ethnicity, consumption and return visits to the home country: The case of the Senegalese venants

Abstract

The article draws on an ethnographic analysis of traditional Soninke migration and biographical narratives of recent Senegalese migrants to France in an attempt to understand what is at stake in terms of ethnicity during their return visits to the homeland. Over and above the ideal type of traditional Soninke migration, the article reveals the existence in recent trajectories of a plurality of identity processes. Analysis of these return visits shows that they are crucial periods during which ethnicities are in motion as migrants redefine what constitutes home. Three aspects of these return visits are then discussed: the role of the migrant (the ‘venant’) in the process of identity construction when he is in the homeland, the importance of return visits in the acculturation of the homeland in terms of consumption cultures and practices and the organisation of the migratory dynamics connecting ethnicity and home.