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LIVING TOGETHER AND LIVING APART IN NOUAKCHOTT Laurence Marfaing As a result of long-standing habits of mobility throughout West Africa, but also, and especially since 2006, due to EU policies aiming to stop African migration to Europe, the number of West African migrants who live on a more or less temporary basis in Mauritania is currently estimated at 65,000, which is 2.5 percent of the total population of 2.7 million inhabitants.1 A government survey carried out in 2007 shows that 60 percent of all foreign nationals in Mauritania have lived there since 2000, without, however, differentiating between their various migratory projects (République Islamique de Mauritanie [hereafter, RIM] 2007: 14). Most of these foreign residents are from neighboring countries, such as Senegal (60 percent) and Mali (30 percent). The remaining 10 percent are from other subSaharan countries, Asia, and the Maghreb (Marfaing 2009a). The majority live in cities: Nouakchott, the capital; Nouadhibou, an important harbor and industrial center; and Rosso, on the border between Senegal and Mauritania on the Senegal River. According to government statistics, the foreign residents account for 4.5 percent of the total population of these cities, and mostly live in districts primarily inhabited by black Mauritanians or nationals of neighboring countries, where they settle following community boundaries (RIM 2007: 11–12). Whole sections of these cities have become “intermediary spaces” both for migrants who ultimately aim to reach Europe and for those who are mainly looking for employment in Mauritania.2 Moreover, for both categories, these areas of transit often turn into places of more permanent residence. In this chapter, I will describe the situation in Mauritania that has led to this influx of foreigners, as well as their internal organization, the relation between long-term residents and more recent arrivals, their attempts to cope with the local labor market, and finally their ways of living together—or perhaps rather of 186 Laurence Marfaing coexisting—with others. This daily coexistence results in “social micro-innovations ” (Tarrius 2007: 11), and migrants are factors of development, both in their host city and back home, due to remittances and the personal experience gained abroad. Among migrants themselves, the experience of migration and the proven ability to adapt to economic and social imperatives are seen as signs of social mobility . Migrants participate in larger movements of globalization, but their way of life is also part of the changes in their host cities. How, then, can we describe their daily experiences? Are we dealing with real sociocultural exchange and integration, or rather with people who live separately while maintaining a fragile balance between economic complementarity and mutual hostility? This chapter aims to show that an approach based on the notion of a particular kind of cosmopolitanism, a “cosmopolitanism from below” (Boesen and Marfaing 2007), can be helpful here. Mauritania, Migrant Country The modern nation-state of Mauritania is of recent creation. In the 1960s and 1970s, the majority of its population was still nomadic, while the newly constructed urban centers were mainly inhabited by more or less recent immigrants from rural Mauritania and neighboring countries. In the colonial period, the state administration and large businesses had heavily relied on foreign labor; when, at independence, French was chosen as the national language, this need for foreign labor and expertise continued. At the same time, the urban boom brought about by independence and subsequent state investment led to a great demand for foreign recruits, mainly from Mali and Senegal, whose presence became a normal part of everyday life. Even today, their knowledge and skills are much sought after in construction, mechanics, fishing, the service sector, and teaching. Moreover, Mauritania has long been a transit country for traders, pilgrims, and fishermen. The Senegal River never was a closed border between Senegal and Mauritania: “as far as neighboring countries were concerned, traders never worried much about borders, nationalities or commercial regulations.”3 According to another informant , a Mauritanian Haalpulaar: “the people from the river valley think of themselves as Mauritanian or Senegalese, but the idea of a border is incongruous.”4 All these elements have combined to turn Mauritania into an area of mobility that is both North and West African, with the Senegal River acting as much as a vector of exchange as a spatial boundary. The river is central to the wider region as a point of contact between the Arab and the African worlds, the Mediterranean and Africa “proper” (Ould Ahmed Salem 2005: 17). Today, while most...

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