Sahara Connected - Tuareg Transnationalism

The Sahara Connected project deals with the Tuaregs modern mobility in the Central Sahara and its deeply interweavements with transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalization. The objectives of the project are investigations about changing space perceptions, strategies and tactics of mobility and conceptions of kinship and new developed social and spatial networks among the contemporary Tuareg society. Political marginalisation, economic exploitation and ecological crisis in the Sahara and the Sahel posed the life of the originally pastoral Tuareg nomads into a rather challenging situation. A large part of the Tuareg society therefore is increasingly forced to switch to urban lifestyles, or is pushed into making transnational border crossings in order to gain new life strategies. In the last decade the Tuareg have developed a space of agency between Libya, Algeria, Niger and Mali. Thereby the boundaries between legal and illegal merge, and the differences between trade, smuggling and migration become blurred. The Tuareg organize transportation, they provide the transport facilities, and deliver passengers and goods through the Sahara. This illegal transnational border business is called afrod. Those Tuareg who are the agents in this business are transnational cosmopolitans, who embody a new elite of their society: They give directions to new ideas and developments and shape the modern Tuareg society. These transnational cosmopolitans are in the spotlight of the Sahara Connected project. On their example crucial shiftings in the modern Tuareg society will be identified: We will deal with characteristics of the trans-Saharan tracks as well as strategies and tactics of mobility and shall grant a comprehensive study and analyses of the Tuaregs unique form of transnational movements (afrod). The fact, that a large part of the Tuareg society is getting increasingly attached to displacement, deterritorialization and consequently also to hybridization, allows us to examine the implications of the transnational movements in terms of changing space perceptions, and the interpretation and appraisal of the imagined community (temust). Finally we shall illuminate critically traditional conceptions of kinship, articulate how the transnational movements affect change in groups, and investigate in new social and spatial networks , beyond sticking on social origin and group membership. Methodologically the Sahara Connected project is founded on a pluralism: Multi-sited ethnography, participant observation and travelling along with mobile subjects (following the people and following the plots), together with a collection of life stories, comparative analyses, and visual anthropology. Institutionally the project will be conducted at the the Institute for Social Anthropology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

The Sahara Connected project concentrated on a special economic niche of transnational mobility of Tuareg and generated a classification and analysis of the development of a border crossing strategy between Niger, Algeria, and Libya, which is called afrod. Afrod is a strategy where the boundaries between legal and illegal are merged, and the distinction between trade, smuggling and migration is blurred. The Tuaregs know-how of the desert, tribal and kin cross-border relations, and sophisticated use of multiple identities allow them to engage in transportation through the Sahara. Beginning in the 1960s, first with camels, then with Land Rovers and, since the 1980s, with Toyotas, the Tuareg provide transport for passengers across the Sahara and smuggle staple food (milk powder, macaroni, tomato paste, oil, sugar, etc.) and cheap fuel. This triggered the development of a transportation structure that now serves sub-Saharan migrants and refuges in crossing the Sahara, the second face of the Mediterranean , in order to reach finally Europe. In the framework of the project contemporary challenges and transformations in the Tuaregs transnational border business have been examined, such as changing routes, new protagonists (Tebu), and new goods (such as alcohol, drugs, live stock, cars). Main focus was on changing perceptions of afrod by the local Tuareg population themselves. In the beginning afrod was considered as a notable and prosperous business providing proude, prestige and economic wealth, and characterizing its protagonist as powerful elite. In recent years the high reputation of afrod went down due to the changing political and security circumstances. The the civil war in Libya, the Tuareg-rebellion in Mali, the overall insecurity due to Islamist groups, an increasing weapon and drug trafficking through the Sahara and rivalries between protagonists working in border crossings contributed to a negative image of afrod. Although the conditions for afrod have undergone major changes and modifications, the business will go on, since it is a strategy to escape poverty and unemployment. Afrod can be seen as a strategy of coping with waithood, a prolonged period of suspension between childhood and adulthood where young adults must improvise livelihoods and conduct their personal relations outside of dominant economic and familial frameworks, and often find solutions in illicit strategies or second economies.