Transnational Activities And Integration Processes Of Francophone Migrants In Accra

ABSTRACT In spite of the treatment of transnationalism and integration as separate subjects by previous studies, there has been growing interest in how transnationalism and integration interact and what the outcomes of these interactions are on migrants and host society relations. These recent studies have however focused on migrants in North America and Europe with very limited attention on how the twin phenomena interact within African contexts. Drawing on the framework of Erdal and Oeppen (2013), who categorize the outcomes of the interactions as additive, synergistic and antagonistic; this study explored the transnational activities and integration processes of francophone migrants. The study examined the factors that influenced the migrants’ integration and the outcomes of the interactions between transnational activities and integration processes. Adopting a qualitative approach, and using a snowball sampling method, twelve (12) migrants from six (6) francophone West African countries were interviewed primarily in Alajo and Kisseman, two suburbs of Accra. The major findings of the study indicate that, the motivations for migrating to Ghana were largely economic and educational in nature and almost all of the participants had some form of early networks established prior to their arrival. In addition, the transnational activities that the migrants engaged in helped them to maintain ties with their home countries, strengthened their national identity and group identity as people of francophone origin and aided in their integration efforts. With respect to the participants' integration; the study found that migrants were integrated economically and socio-culturally in various ways, but faced certain structural and socio-cultural challenges that hindered their ability and/or willingness to integrate. iv While factors such as length of stay, access to information prior to migration and motivations for migrating influenced the migrants’ integration efforts to some extent; the circumstances migrants encountered once in Ghana as well as their individual agency played a larger role in influencing their integration process. In addition, the migrants experienced different outcomes based on their levels of transnational engagement and integration and the interaction of the transnational activities and the dimensions of integration. It was therefore possible for the migrants to experience the same economic and socio-cultural outcomes or different economic and socio-cultural outcomes. The francophone migrants were most likely to experience a synergistic economic outcome, where the resources gained from one place (either origin or settlement) were used to develop further resources in the other place. On the other hand, the migrants were just as likely to experience an antagonistic socio-cultural outcome as they were to experience a synergistic outcome. An overall additive outcome where the interactions lead to an additive economic outcome and an additive socio-cultural outcome was the least likely to occur among the francophone migrants interviewed. Finally, as noted in the typology of Erdal and Oeppen (2013); several of the migrants engaged in a balancing act, straddling the societies of here (Ghana) and there (origin country). The migrants accessed opportunities and benefits such as finding jobs, making investments and buying property while also bearing responsibilities in both places. These responsibilities included activities such as sending remittances to the origin county and paying rent in Ghana. The study recommends that measures that could potentially aid integration efforts such as creating a more transparent and streamlined process in acquiring residence and work permits and standardising the requirements and regulations for rental properties be introduced.