Mobility as a battlefield: radical uncertainty, ‘luck’ and (im)mobility in undocumented migration from the Gambia to Europe

This article argues that Euro-African mobility regime marked undocumented journeys of Gambians with radical uncertainty, which gave their mobility the dynamics of a ‘battlefield’. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Gambia and focusing on the narrative of a Gambian man who attempted to travel through the Sahara Desert, Libya and the Mediterranean in 2016, I argue that radical, violent uncertainty transformed the dynamics of migrant mobilities in two ways. Firstly, it shaped them into what I described as ‘battlefield mobilities’ – dangerous, hectic, desperate actions, aimed at fighting obstacles and escaping violence and exploitation. Secondly, it enforced frequent immobility into the journey – either through violent immobilization or as a way of navigating the danger. I referred to this joint dynamics as ‘battlefield (im)mobilities’. The metaphor of a ‘battle’ conveys the symbolic and practical importance of mobility northwards in Gambian aspirations, the lethal risk of undertaking it, and the consequent dynamics of undocumented journeys. At an existential level, migrants deal with the dangerous uncertainty by viewing it through the lens of ‘luck’, understood as part of each person’s individual destiny. Rather than being a purely local cultural notion, however, ‘luck’, reflects experiences shaped by specific power relations at a global level.