Overview
My research on transnational mobilities and identities explores how migrants sustain social, emotional, and political ties across borders, and how these connections shape life trajectories in both home and host societies. Through extensive fieldwork in Italy and Senegal, I investigate how people navigate belonging, obligation, and aspiration across multiple places at once. This work focuses especially on West African (primarily Senegalese) transnational migrants, whose circulations, attachments, and responsibilities illuminate broader questions of identity, mobility, and global inequality.
Key Themes
1. Multiple Attachments & Belonging Across Borders
Migrants often live in overlapping social worlds, balancing identities connected to their country of origin, their host society, and transnational communities abroad. My research documents how Senegalese migrants in Italy cultivate and negotiate these attachments, and how they make sense of belonging in contexts where their social, economic, and political commitments stretch across continents.
2. Mobility as Strategy, Obligation & Opportunity
Mobility is not only movement but also a strategy embedded in family expectations, livelihood needs, and transnational projects. I explore how migrants interpret the significance of being “here and there,” how they sustain obligations to families and communities, and how these expectations shape choices around work, remittances, return, or onward migration.
3. Return Migration & the Politics of Going Back
Return is often idealised by institutions promoting migration‑for‑development, yet experienced more ambivalently by migrants. My work examines how return is planned, desired, delayed, or resisted, and how returning migrants encounter shifting social positions, ambiguous expectations, or new forms of belonging and exclusion upon going “home.”
4. Transnational Influence & Social Change
Through their mobility, economic contributions, political participation, and social networks, migrants influence both destination and origin societies. I investigate how Senegalese transnational migrants shape local development initiatives, community projects, and household dynamics, as well as how their experiences abroad feed back into social transformations at home.
Migrants often live in overlapping social worlds, balancing identities connected to their country of origin, their host society, and transnational communities abroad. My research documents how Senegalese migrants in Italy cultivate and negotiate these attachments, and how they make sense of belonging in contexts where their social, economic, and political commitments stretch across continents.
2. Mobility as Strategy, Obligation & Opportunity
Mobility is not only movement but also a strategy embedded in family expectations, livelihood needs, and transnational projects. I explore how migrants interpret the significance of being “here and there,” how they sustain obligations to families and communities, and how these expectations shape choices around work, remittances, return, or onward migration.
3. Return Migration & the Politics of Going Back
Return is often idealised by institutions promoting migration‑for‑development, yet experienced more ambivalently by migrants. My work examines how return is planned, desired, delayed, or resisted, and how returning migrants encounter shifting social positions, ambiguous expectations, or new forms of belonging and exclusion upon going “home.”
4. Transnational Influence & Social Change
Through their mobility, economic contributions, political participation, and social networks, migrants influence both destination and origin societies. I investigate how Senegalese transnational migrants shape local development initiatives, community projects, and household dynamics, as well as how their experiences abroad feed back into social transformations at home.
Research Foundations
This work builds on multi-sited fieldwork carried out during my doctoral studies at the University of Milan‑Bicocca (Italy) and Cheikh Anta Diop University (Senegal). It combines in‑depth ethnographic observation with life histories and long-term engagement with migrant families and associations.
My broader international experience (including living and working across Europe, Africa, and Asia) deepens this comparative and relational perspective on mobility and belonging.
My broader international experience (including living and working across Europe, Africa, and Asia) deepens this comparative and relational perspective on mobility and belonging.
Selected Focus Areas & Examples
West African Transnational Migrants
This long-term project investigates:
This long-term project investigates:
- Identity and belonging among Senegalese migrants in Italy
- The emotional, economic, and political significance of transnational ties
- The effects of migration and return on family relations and local communities
- How migrants interpret and negotiate expectations around success, duty, and mobility
Comparative Transnational Practices
While primarily centred on Senegalese communities, this research also touches on broader questions of how migrant groups circulate between multiple places, maintain affective ties at a distance, and create social worlds that transcend national borders.
While primarily centred on Senegalese communities, this research also touches on broader questions of how migrant groups circulate between multiple places, maintain affective ties at a distance, and create social worlds that transcend national borders.
Why This Work Matters
Transnational mobility challenges the assumption that people belong neatly to one nation, culture, or community. By foregrounding migrants’ lived experiences (how they build lives across borders, sustain obligations, and imagine futures) this research helps reframe public debates on integration, return, development, and citizenship in more nuanced, human-centred ways.
Photo: Giulia Sinatti, Dakar (Senegal) 2004