Ben Burgen is a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology. His research focuses on the motivations for and impacts of migration from the rural Senegal River Valley to urban and transnational destinations. He is particularly interested in the variety of ways that migrants and non-migrants work together to promote the development of their hometowns in Senegal (both through formalized hometown associations and as individuals) and their visions for the future.
From the Fall of 2015 through the Fall of 2016 Ben spent 11 months in rural Senegal performing ethnographic research, developing a case study of one rural migrant-sending town. This research was immediately followed by a month spent with Senegalese migrants living in France and Italy.
His dissertation will address the ways that evolving patterns of labor migration are impacting individuals’ worldviews and aspirations, household dynamics, community organizing, and the local economy in the town where his research was focused. This work will highlight the persistent centrality of hometown sociality and affiliations within the context of increasing fragmentation and precarity of migrant life abroad.
Ben’s research has been funded by the Department of Anthropology, the Center for African Studies, the UF Graduate School, the Sahel Research Group, and a Fulbright Hays fellowship.