Échec et mat. An ethnographic study of the psychosocial health of forced-return migrants in Dakar.

In Senegal, emigration is socially valued as a meaningful way to achieve success. However, increasingly restrictive European border policies contribute to making migration journeys more perilous and uncertain; therefore, unwilling, forced returns due to deportation or adverse events en route have become more frequent. This thesis explores the impact on individual and community psychosocial well-being of forced-return migrations in the urban area of Dakar, through an ethnographic approach. Following the daily lives of 5 forced-return migrants, I describe their experience in terms of challenges to their subsistence and psychosocial readjustment, burdened by marginalization, sense of failure, feelings of dishonor and shame. Relationships with origin and surrounding communities can be damaged by complex processes of stigmatization; at the same time, new forms of bottom-up communities based on shared hardships can emerge. Observations and interviews with psychiatrists and civil-society workers show that a variety of care services are available to forced-return migrants, but they are not always accessible; Senegalese care practitioners also highlight complex and sometimes conflictual relationships with foreign organizations and NGOs. These findings are discussed through the theoretical lenses of bio- and necropower, stigma and idioms of distress, as the result of power unbalances that constrain the opportunities of young Senegalese migrants, expose them to structural violence, and ultimately yield embodied individual health experiences.