Junior-senior linkages in migration: youngsters’ perceptions of migration in rural Burkina Faso

This chapter focuses on young people’s perspectives on migration and explores the way in which several generations’ practices of migrating and intergenerational relationships affect labour migration for rural youth. The chapter uses the concept of ‘intergenerational contracts’ as analytical frame to examine youngsters’ conceptualisations of the social responsibilities of migrants towards their family before and after they themselves begin to search for work away from home. It argues that youngsters’ imaginaries of migration are self-perpetuating. On the one hand, they are fed by appearances and invented or real stories about young migrants’ achievement, on the other hand they feed into the way in which young migrants represent themselves upon return. However, hardships as migrants and the influence of peer and kin at the destination makes youngsters understand the value of family relations and works to tie them into the rural family