Un désert cosmopolite. Migrations de transit dans la région d'Agadez (Sahara nigérien) ; A cosmopolitan desert. Transit Migrations in Agadez area (Niger's Sahara desert)

Open Access

Abstract

Since the early 1990's there has been a significant migration of people, from various cultures and countries, streaming across Niger's Sahara desert, consequently "transforming" it. To spite the restricting, often hindering polices imposed by the Maghreb States, which does lessen what would be an even greater migration, people continue arriving and departing. Travelers from all parts of the continent, regardless of difficulties, both physical and political in nature, migrate to North Africa for few months or few years. These migrations flowing in and out of the desert region surrounding Agadez are the main dynamic that transforms the area. Besides forging a new Saharan geography, they also connect various cultures creating a diversity that is the very essence of cosmopolitanism. The study of these migrations and the desert routes they utilize reveals how it effects the travelers themselves and their relationship to each other, as well as the geography of the region. It is a process of change that occurs also during the journey as much as upon destination. In the context of identical tension and the refusal of otherness, the constant migratory flow of these travelers in Niger's region around Agadez, is a dynamic of globalization "from the bottom", yet renders the place cosmopolitan. ; Depuis le début des années 1990, d'importants flux migratoires traversent et « transforment » le Sahara nigérien. En dépit des obstacles qui entravent la circulation dans cette région, reflets des dysfonctionnements de l'État nigérien et du durcissement des politiques migratoires des États maghrébins, des migrants originaires de toute une partie du continent se rendent par cette voie en Afrique du Nord, d'où la plupart reviennent après quelques mois ou quelques années. Les migrations transsahariennes constituent ainsi le principal facteur de dynamisme et de transformation de la région d'Agadez. Elles tendent à redéfinir une nouvelle géographie saharienne, en mettant en contact des lieux et des acteurs de façon inédite, en ...