Migration versus Stagnation in Equatorial Guinea: The Sea as the Promise of Modernity

This paper centers on two authors from Equatorial Guinea, Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo and Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, who express opposing views on modernity, i.e., social mobility in their African country. Ndongo-Bidyogo focuses on migration as the alternative, whereas Ávila Laurel emphasizes stagnation at home, aiming to find a way out of this situation. In both cases, the authors relate these expectations to the route over the ocean, the route that promises better opportunities in life. Only by establishing this link do these authors consider diasporic life, always connected to the migrant's possibility to go back to their place of birth.