Africa's unholy migrants: Mobility and migrant morality in the age of borders

Abstract

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. This article sheds new light on the migration of Africans to the European Union by looking at how spatial mobility relates to migrant morality, informed by in-depth qualitative interviews with members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Paris. Although issues such as discrimination and exclusion are salient features of contemporary migration, the process of migration across space in the 'age of borders' also forces migrants to appraise their shared moral values and ethical standards. Using migrant morality as an entry point, the article demonstrates how borders define migrant lives, irrespective of their legal status. The process of negotiating these borders leads to profound experiences of self-doubt, the testing and alteration of gender relations, and processes of selfevaluation and ethical self-fashioning that serve in both shaping migrant life as well as in producing forms of resistance. The article reveals how migrants are embedded in multi-layered experiences that are simultaneously personal, social, spiritual, and political.