Julie Kleinman

JULIE KLEINMAN, Fordham University, New York, New York, received a grant in April 2022 to aid research on “Freedoms to Circulate: Reframing Political and Social Belonging through Migrant Activism in Mali.” This ethnographic research examined the socio-political projects of migrant rights activists in Mali. Often seen as a place of emigration, Mali has become a host country for migrants who have been expelled from elsewhere and settle in the place they hoped to transit through. Increasing deportations and precarious livelihoods have led Malian migrants abroad to return home. These communities have converged upon the capital of Bamako during a period of ongoing conflict, building associations for migrant rights. Mobilizing fieldwork among activists and foreign aid organizations, this research examined how experiences of deportation shaped migrant rights activism in the context of a ballooning international humanitarian apparatus and its embedded racial logics. Developing a participative ethnographic approach with migrant rights activists in Bamako, this project mapped the transnational networks that emerge through the defense of migrant rights and their effects on activists’ life course and livelihoods.