The rank effect: post-emancipation immobility in a Soninke village

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Periodical article

Title:	The rank effect: post-emancipation immobility in a Soninke village
Author:	Gaibazzi, Paolo
Year:	2012
Periodical:	The Journal of African History (ISSN 0021-8537)
Volume:	53
Issue:	2
Pages:	215-234
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Gambia
Subjects:	Soninke abolition of slavery slaves social status mobility labour migration emigration
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853712000382
Abstract:	The end of internal slavery in West Africa is generally associated with an increase in labour mobility. This article complicates this picture by showing that the effects of status - the rank effect - on people's ability to migrate often outlasted emancipation. In Sabi, a Soninke village in Upper River Gambia, economic migration intensified and globalized from the 1950s onwards. Although they have since been free to move, the descendants of slaves have migrated less than those of the freeborn. The article attributes this relative immobility to the enduring dynamics of socioeconomic marginalization based on slave descent. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]