Doctoral Dissertation Research: Transnationalism, Islam, and Commerce Among Malian Immigrants in Brazzaville

刚果布拉柴维尔市是来自马里的移民的家园，马里移民已经成为该市的一部分超过100年了。虽然这些移民在刚果有高度的经济融合（大多数是商人和企业家），但他们仍然保持着一个几乎在所有方面都与文化多数人分开的社区：他们避免异族通婚，并限制与刚果人的社会交往。更重要的是，这些马里人仍然密切参与其原籍国的事务，尽管它在数千英里之外。这篇由文化人类学学生撰写的论文研究将研究这个移民群体的成员如何以及为什么在几代人中保持这些重要的跨国关系。它将使用一系列方法，包括参与观察、深度访谈、抽样调查和来自单个村庄的移民案例研究，特别关注生活的三个核心领域，这是在这种环境下保持马里人独特文化身份的基础：育儿实践、伊斯兰教和商业。它还将探讨移民问题，除了作为宏观层面的社会，经济和政治力量的结果，如何被理解为个体代理人的事业，他们不仅在其中找到经济生计，而且找到深刻的文化意义。就其更广泛的影响而言，这项研究将有助于培养一名年轻的社会科学家，所创造的新知识将对世界许多地方关注移民和当地社区生活的政策制定者感兴趣。

The city of Brazzaville, Congo, is home to a population of immigrants from Mali, which has been a part of that city for over 100 years. While these immigrants have a high degree of economic integration in Congo (most are merchants and entrepreneurs), they nonetheless maintain a community that is in nearly all respects separate from that of the cultural majority: they avoid intermarriage and limit their social contacts with Congolese. More importantly, these Malians remain intimately involved in the affairs of their country of origin, despite the fact that it is thousands of miles away. This dissertation research by a student of cultural anthropology will study how and why members of this immigrant group preserve these significant transnational ties over several generations. It will use an array of methods, including participant observation, in-depth interviews, a sample survey, and a case study of migrants from a single village, to focus special attention on three core areas of life which are fundamental in keeping a distinct cultural identity for Malians in this setting: childrearing practices, Islam, and commerce. It will also explore the question of how migration, in addition to being a result of macro-level social, economic, and political forces, might be understood as an undertaking of individual agents who find in it not only economic livelihoods but deep cultural meaning. In terms of its broader impact, this study will contribute to the education of a young social scientist, and the new knowledge to be created will be of interest to policy makers concerned with immigration and local community life in many parts of the world.