This post is part of the blog series titled Visions for migration, published by the Standing Committee Reflexivities in Migration Studies (SC REFLEX), and edited by Sorina Carstea, Iva Dodevska, Stefan Manser-Egli and Anna-Lisa Müller. The series discusses the question: how does who we are shape how we do migration research, and what kind of world do we hope our research can contribute towards? Find the introduction to the series here.
Author: BALKISSA DAOUDA DIALLO
In the Zarma-Songhai society of Niger, the word “taboussizé/kourmizé" means migrant. Beyond this, it connotes courage, dignity, and self-determination. To be a “taboussizé/kourmizé" is to pursue hope for the family and community. Its essence is captured in songs, maxims, and oral traditions, which tell the stories of those who leave home in search of a better life, reflecting both personal ambition and collective resilience. Growing up in Niger, I often heard the term in songs, and family stories. The word framed those who left home not with pity, but with pride and accomplishment.
Being a researcher and a person on the move myself, I have reflected on how such cultural understandings are often ignored in research. Migration is frequently reduced to numbers, borders, and policies, omitting how societies themselves give meaning to what it means to be on the move. Exploring such meanings unpacks societal contestations over mobility and diversity. In this blog, I examine “taboussizé/kourmizé" in the Zarma-Songhai society through music to explore how cultural understandings of migration shape approaches to mobility and how it can influence epistemological inquiry in migration research. Such perspectives challenge notions of human stasis and contribute to migration research that is inclusive. Indeed, oral tradition has been a central aspect of knowledge production in African societies. Today, oral tradition is reflected in secular music. Oral traditions existing even before colonization as a way of knowing and sharing knowledge, continue to shape modern music, which often serves as an important medium for expressing traditions and cultural notions of what it means to be a migrant in many African societies. Thus, the need for going beyond conventional migration research involving dominant discourses of human stasis when African migration is concerned, to delving into epistemologies at the margins of migration research to advance our understanding of ‘migration’ as defined within different societies.
‘Kourmi’ as Imaginary : Music, Mobility and Identity formation
Knowledge about migration is often shared through artistic music in Africa. Oral tradition in Africa embeds history, ways of knowing, contested power, philosophical reflections, and precedes written accounts of the past. Not only is orality seen beyond the “absence of literacy” to be a unique genre, it also constantly coexists with artistic representations such as music. Music constitutes a tool for transmitting knowledge and histories. In contemporary Africa, music continues to be a medium for sharing information, remembrances, and even in advocacy campaigns as seen in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through my education in Niger and Ghana, music has been central to symbolic communication embodying knowledge and histories, but is also a medium for diffusing information, political campaigns, policy changes, and morals. It also comprises the sharing of history, tradition, and culture. The memory of women who stayed behind when their husbands migrated from Niger to coastal cities like Accra, Abidjan, or Lagos is still fresh in my mind. Those women migrated from the rural to urban areas and settled informally in the capital and worked as domestic workers in urban households. The men are referred to as kourmizé. Kourmizé are seen as young men whose departure carry the trajectories of those who preceded them and where the promise of success is alive. Kourmizé’s social relations, economies, and cultural identities shift as they begin to be on the move. This transformation is generational. For instance, while kourmizé means a person who was born in his/her home country, and travelled to a foreign country, taboussizé refers to someone who was born in a country different from his/her parents' country of origin. Both words are often used interchangeably. The word ‘Kourmi’ literally means ‘far away’. Early accounts of ‘Kourmi’ are recorded in the ethnographer Jean Rouch’s documentary in colonial Niger whereby the word referred to the Gold Coast, current Ghana. The migrant society relationship in this case reveals the fluid identity of migrants. The notions of identity and belonging were explored in terms of group membership and as constructed through a process of negotiation. Hence, belonging encapsulates the relationship between personal identity and a collective one. The notion of ‘Kourmi’ shows that ‘migrancy’ transcends spatial movement and reflects identity formation through an idea of what it means to be on the move.
When a person moves in these cultural contexts, they become intricately attached to the constructed destination of ‘Kourmi’ or the ‘far away’. This can dictate how the society left behind sees him/her, and new cultural and identity formations around not being entirely from the place of origin, nor entirely from the host destination, but of ‘Kourmi’. ‘Kourmi’ becomes an imaginary site at the intersection of origin and host society where new identities form around notions of dignity and belonging.
Singing Kourmizé : “Douma has a house, and we have nothing except our feet”
Current storytelling about ‘Kourmi’ can be found in modern music. For instance, Mali Yaro in his song kourmizé literally meaning ‘son of the far away’, connects the idea of ‘Kourmi’ to Europe. Similarly, John Sofakoley and ZM music on taboussizé also engages with the one who was sent to the ‘far away’ and expands connections to Europe and the United States. Each song engages with the idea of dignity and belonging that migration entails. For instance, in kourmizé, Mali Yaro conveys the state of mind of people who leave in his lyrics, “searching for yourself it is better than begging, begging and gaining is a shame imagine begging and not gaining”. In a similar way, in their song, John Sofakiley and ZM, using a similar mindset, “I have to go, because I am ashamed to always have to ask.” In both songs, dignity can be seen as the ability to be self-sufficient and to access independence through migration. Aspects of belonging can be also noted in both artistic expressions. In both musical storytelling, belonging is seen in how being of ‘Kourmi’ provides the opportunity to negotiate new forms of belonging in the original society. As also recorded in Jean Rouch documentary, Jaguar, as two friends began their journey to the Gold Coast (Ghana), they reflected on their friend who recently came back from ‘Kourmi’, “Douma used to tell us that in the Gold Coast he had a two-storey house… Douma has a house, and we have nothing except our feet.” In other words, being of ‘Kourmi’ is a site where the imaginary is unbounded and provides an opportunity to be seen differently and respectably in the society of origin; thus, allowing new forms of belonging.
Migration vision in the global south: Beyond fear, marginalization and crisis
The idea of ‘Kourmi’ in the context of the Zarma-Songhay society depicts migration as a human endeavor which is not necessarily attached to a specific driver, nor to a single destination, but represents a site for personal transformation. In this lens, migration is not seen as a problem, but as an expression of dignity and belonging. This idea contrasts with contemporary notions of migration in Africa whereby different drivers ranging from finding work, politics, or family are identified and frequently related to the material implications of moving. In such discourse, moving is seen as an ‘anomaly’ needing intervention with development provisions to establish the ‘normal’. The latter advancing the idea of human stasis in African societies. Limiting attention to epistemologies, such as music or culture, at the margins of migration research exclude ways of knowing in African societies which are deeply linked to oral traditions. In doing so, it narrows the meaning of migration in those societies. Using inclusive methodologies in making sense of migration in societies of the Global South not only provides a rich empirical depth into migrants' relationships with their origin and host societies, it also provides a basis for making sense of how belonging is constructed in various societies depending on their conceptions of what it means to be on the move. Such conceptions are often confined in culture and oral traditions.
As a migration researcher, I reflect on the notion of ‘Kourmi’ and how it can shape our approaches to investigating migration phenomena in different societies. First, the need to see migration as part of human nature, and its variations in meaning. This pertains to our pre-conceived notions and positionality about migration. Second, ‘numbers’ is what we see in migration, but how we understand it is often blurred by existing practices that often reproduce the same narrative. Real understanding comes from the frameworks we use. Relying only on numbers shows us trends, but engaging with culture, tradition and lived meaning deepens our understanding of migration. Third, it is important to see African migration beyond evidence of failures but as an expression of success. Migration policy in the Global South in general and Africa in particular, should look beyond addressing the material condition of migration to pay attention to the imaginary and cultural notions of migration, such as reflected by ‘Kourmi’.
Bio: Balkissa Daouda Diallo is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) where her research is on African migrations and governance with a focus on informal and multi-level mechanisms. She holds a Ph.D. in Global Governance and Human Security and an M.A. in Conflict Resolution from the University of Massachusetts Boston an M.A. in International Development and an M.Sc. in Environmental Studies from Ohio University.