A liminal staging of pan-Africanism: Shifts in messages on migration from Abasse Ndione’s Mbëkë mi to Moussa Touré’s La Pirogue

Abstract

This article examines the adaptation from book to film of a recent Senegalese tale of clandestine migration by boat. Abasse Ndione’s Mbëkë mi (2008) foregrounds the motivations for migration for Senegalese youth and provokes readers’ sympathy for its migrating characters. It uses a heteroglossic lexicon which is nevertheless anchored in the French language on which the author must rely in order to publish his message. Moussa Touré’s film La Pirogue, by contrast, although sponsored by agents promoting francophonie, includes French and African languages in equal measure. This article examines the ethnic, religious and linguistic differences that the film points up as it represents contemporary migration.