‘When Migrants Become Messengers’: Affective Borderwork and Aspiration Management in Senegal

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork to explore how affect and emotions are used in migration awareness campaigns and how local communities respond. ‘Aspiration management’ works to instil a sense in would-be Senegalese migrants that their hopes of migration to Europe are both dangerous and futile. The author argues that affective borderwork works at a different level than other border activities connected to legal and physical migration control. By cultivating particular emotions and morally-embedded geographies, these campaigns promote an inner, self-regulating border in the minds and bodies of people.