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Dan Belgique: The Making Of Hausa Transnational Spaces Between Brussels And The
Sahel
Author(s): Sébastien Lo Sardo
Source: Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic
Development , FALL, WINTER 2013, Vol. 42, No. 3/4, SPECIAL ISSUE: African
Transnational Migration to Europe and the United States, Part II (FALL, WINTER 2013),
pp. 305-331
Published by: The Institute, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24643192
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Dan Belgique:
The Making Of
Hausa Transnational Spaces
Between Brussels And The Sahel
Sébastien Lo Sardo
Centre d Anthropologie Culturelle

Université Libre de Bruxelles
ABSTRACT: The Hausa, spreading from their homelands in the

Sahel, have shaped a vast diaspora of trade-oriented communities
throughout West Africa and, more recently, Europe, North America
and the Middle East.
Since the late 1990s, Hausa networks have spread toward
Brussels (the core of Europe and the home of its political institu
tions) or, more accurately, toward a gritty, derelict neighborhood
of the western part of the city. This area is an international hub for
an intense, and somewhat opaque, car trade to West Africa. While
wealthy entrepreneurs organize the trade from Niger and Nigeria,
some Hausa economic migrants are permanently settled in Brus
sels and gravitate, with various successes, around the car trade, its
garages and warehouses.
Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography conducted in both
Belgium and southern Niger, this article explores the personal
trajectories of these migrants. It aims to highlight how their liveli
hoods are both permitted and constrained by urban transformations
in Brussels, European immigration policies and the structures of
Hausa long-distance trade. It also examines how Hausa migrants
305
ISSN 0894-6019, © 2013 The Institute, Inc.

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306 URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY VOL. 42(3, 4), 2013
are creating, through flows of money, gifts and info

transnational space of practice and experience that lies n
there but at the very intersection of Hausaland and Eu
I was in Niamey, Niger, conducting fieldwork am

businessmen and entrepreneurs, when I first h
quartier Heyvaert. An alhaj (one of those pious a
Muslim merchants so prominent in Hausa social
told me about this neighborhood of my hometown
He told me, amazed and almost nostalgic, about
activity of a neighborhood where you could meet
est merchants of the Sahel. He told me about its streets and
their distinctively West African flavor. He told me about the
endless flow of people, goods and cash energizing every part
of quartier Heyvaert.
I had no idea what he was talking about.
For me and, I assume, for most of Brussels' inhabitants, the
Heyvaert neighborhood was just another of these bleak and
gritty neighborhoods forming the city's arc of poverty and
known for their high unemployment rates and sporadic riots
(see Debroosere and Willaert 2005).
Once back in Belgium, I decided to investigate this para
doxical place that seemed to be the locus of two parallel uni
verses: famous as a global economic center in West Africa while
remaining invisible in Brussels. The neighborhood appeared
to be the hub of an intense, and somewhat opaque, second
hand cars and used goods trade to West Africa. In Niger, the
importance of this trade is such that the goods regarded as
coming from the West, such as televisions or domestic appli
ances, are typically labeled as dan Belgique (from Belgium, lit.
son of Belgium).
While wealthy businessmen, like the alhaj evoked above,
organize the trade from the Sahel, irregular immigrants settle
in Brussels and gravitate, with varying degrees of success,
around the car trade, its garages and warehouses.

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Lo Sardo: HAUSA TRANSNATIONAL SPACES 307
Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography, c

Belgium and southern Niger, this article exp
of the Heyvaert neighborhood and the exp
tories of the Nigerien Hausa migrants who i
show how they are both permitted and con
transformations in Brussels, European im
and the structures of Hausa long-distance t
see, the Heyvaert neighborhood offers also
examine, in the making, how Hausa migr
tional spaces of practice and experience w
Brussels nor in the Sahel but at their very i
The article is interspersed with three c
grant's short biographies. Their aim, beside
argument, is to highlight how large-scale d
national migration are embodied, at the mo
by personal trajectories.
The Hausa Mobility Systems
The Hausa constitute one of the major

today's West Africa. The term Hausa refe
linguistic group of 25 million people sha
homogeneous language and mainly located in
and southern Niger. People identifying them
closely associated to the activity of trade an
(see, e.g., Agier 1981; Cohen 1969; Grégorie
Stoller 2002; Yamba 1995).
In Hausaland, like everywhere else in t
Sahel, mobility constitutes the main adaptiv
with climatic, economic or political const
Rain 1999; Walther and Rétaillé 2008). Thro
everyone seems to be about to go or has alre
which possibly means taking a bush taxi to

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market, visiting relatives in Niamey, flying to Pari

in Lagos, Abidjan or Accra.
Actually, the very core ot hausaness seems to
shaped by movement and mobility. The Hausa d
riculture has long been a shifting one, with familie
search of land, settling a few years, and then mov
the soil becomes less fertile (Rain 1999). Beyond ru
activities, the Hausa world has experienced early u
dynamics. The Hausa kingdoms and city-states w
the 15th century to the end of the 19th century, b
the routes of the trans-Saharan trade where Hausa merchants
monopolized the circulations of kola nuts, slaves, leather and
gold (Baier 1980; Lovejoy 1973). Later, colonial rule led to the
collapse of the trans-Saharan trade and to the great division of
Hausaland between Great Britain and France (see Miles 1994).
Mobility was again the key response to deal with a new world.
The Hausa traced trade routes leading to the coastal cities of
the Gulf of Guinea which polarized the colonial economic
activities.
Through these historical dynamics, the Hausa have shaped

a vast diasporic network of trade-oriented communities
throughout much of the Northern half of the African continent.
In the process, the Hausa language has become a major trade
lingua franca and one of Africa's main spoken languages (see
Jaggar 2010).
The zongo, the Hausa enclave in foreign towns, is a key
component of the Hausa system of mobility. These enclaves
are organized around the values of trade and Islam and form
a dense network of interlinked communities allowing com
modities, people and information to flow without obstruction.
The Hausa enclaves frame the intense movements of seasonal
migrants who are know as exodants in Nigerien French. Year
after year, thousands of men and women leave their villages
in the dry areas of the rural Sahel to work, for a few months,

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in coastal cities such as Lagos, Abidjan, Co

Boyer 2006; Lo Sardo 2010; Rain 1999).
Throughout the Sahel, the postcolonial e
by political instability, long-standing eco
clysmic droughts. At the same time, the p
also experimented with an unprecedente
global communication infrastructures (se
In response to these dynamics, the Hau
and mobility have expanded their scope
African continent. In recent years, they hav
and economic centers of the Arabic Middl
cities of China or the eldorados of North Am
Beuret 2008; Grégoire and Schmitz 2000;
stedt 2004). But in the first place, they ha
what was long perceived as the land of en
Europe, where Hausa have spread an array
munities in London, Berlin, Paris and ind
Case Study: Issa, A Classic Tale of Nige
Issa was born in 1974, the year of the dr

several years of low rainfall, a devastating
ine and displacement struck the Western
was forced to leave the village of Kornaka to
relatives in Dakoro, the department chef-l
northern fringes of Hausaland.
Ten years later, in the aftermath of yet an
had to move south to the city of Maradi.
heart of Nigerien Hausaland and, thanks
the Nigerien border, a major center for t
Issa spent his teenage years in the poorest
among other refugees of the drought. At th
to sell smuggled gas and oil, one of Maradi
of an automobile repair shop. After a few

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getting better up north, Issa's father decided to tak

back to Kornaka. Issa never got used to the early
monotonous days of his hometown. Instead of far
longed for the excitement and opportunities of urb
You can't become someone here. There's no work,

there's nothing to do in the villages. You can only sit in
the dust and wait. (...) In the city, everything's different.
You can have everything you want there. You can buy
nice clothes, you can eat nice meals, you can see new
stuff. It's good.
When he was 19, he moved back to Maradi to live with

relatives and sell oil and gas again. Issa spent the next five
years circulating between Kornaka and Maradi and eventually
used, as many other young men, the latter as a gateway to hit
les routes de l'exode.
L'exode (French for exodus) refers to the movements through

which, year after year, thousands of men and women leave
their villages to work in coastal cities. These circular migrations
typically follow the rhythm of Sahelian agriculture: the exodants
leave around late October, after the crops have been harvested,
and come back between May and June, at the beginning of the
rainy season. This seasonal feature tends nowadays to fade out
since l'exode is becoming increasingly longer.
When it came to choosing a destination, Issa chose to go
to Lagos, the metropolis of southern Nigeria. Along with fel
low exodants, he traveled south in buses and livestock trucks.
Once within the chaos of Lagos, bustling with movement and
noise, Issa found his way toward fellows from his region.
Through these networks, he managed to find employment as
an itinerant seller of warm tea. After seven months of going
all over the hardness of the city with his kettle, Issa came back
to Kornaka just in time to work in the village fields. He came
back with some saved money, a new pair of shoes to show off

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and gifts (like clothes or perfume) to distrib

and relatives.
After this initial journey, Issa returned several times to La

gos. He came to stay an entire year, working as a watchman
for the property of a Dakoro native trader who was in the
livestock business.
After traveling seven times to Lagos, Issa became tired of
l'exode and its uncertainties. The year before we met, as he was
on his way back to Kornaka, all his savings and belongings
were robbed by militaries in the Katsina state. Furthermore, he
felt that he was spending more money in transportation and
lodging fees than he was able to bring back.
Issa was also facing a kind of biographical dead-end situ
ation. At the age of 32, and after two failed attempts to pay a
bridewealth, he was unable to get married. In the Hausa society,
being unmarried means being stuck in a frustrating stage of
social immaturity.
To fulfill his personal needs and ambitions, Issa was think
ing about migrating further away, to a place which could offer
him more money and opportunities than does West Africa.
His initial plan (to take the road north and work in the oil
fields of Libya) was discouraged by returned immigrants' de
pressing stories. Before the civil war, Libya was a potentially
lucrative destination but also a dangerous one. The journey to
Libya implies crossing the Sahara with the risk of being left
to a sure death in the desert or at a desolated border oasis.
Moreover, West African immigrants were subjected to the
predatory attitude of border guards, militaries and police as
well as frequent racist aggressions.
Issa began to prepare a journey to Europe or, more precisely,
to the land of dan Belgique and its seemingly endless profusion
of cash and commodities.
As so many Sahelian men, he was making unrealistic as
sumptions about Europe. He thought of Brussels as he thought
of Lagos or Accra, i.e., a city where you can start a new life

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just by vending teas on the street. Moreover, acco

imagined realities of dan Belgique, Issa was convin
merely a few months, he could become one of tho
businessmen moving cars, goods and money acr
tances.
The main inconsistency in Issa's migratory project was th

it lacked the necessary network contacts. Facing my pol
skepticism, Issa had underlined his experience of migrat
and his skills in urban survival:
I did it in Lagos and Lagos is tough you know. You

won't survive there for a minute, you have to be smart to
live and make money there, really smart. If you can make
it in Lagos, well you can make it everywhere.
Sub-Saharan African Presence in Brussels
Belgium, as much of northwestern Europe, has a long his

tory of asylum and immigration. Since the end of World Wa
II, Belgian cities and industrial areas have attracted flows o
immigrants coming from the poorest and harshest parts o
Southern Europe, North Africa or the Eastern Balkans. These
migrations resulted from bilateral recruitment agreement
conduced with, e.g., Italy, Morocco or Turkey. Immigrants we
used as guest workers to sustain Belgian industrial sectors
such as coalmining or steelmaking. These work immigratio
policies ended officially in 1974. The subsequent closure of th
borders led to the rise of clandestine immigration, involving
mainly people coming from Africa and, to a lesser extent, As
and Latin America (Maskens 2008).
The 1990s marked another turning point for immigration
policies in Belgium. The riots, which broke out in the so-called
immigrants' neighborhoods of Brussels in 1991, led the Belgia
authorities to reconsider their immigration and integratio
policies. On the one hand, unprecedented efforts were mad

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to create an institutionalized integration

2010; Rea 2007). On the other, the Belg
came, under the pressure of the rising f
focused on the immigration issues and t
to urban crime.
The sub-Saharan presence in Belgium cannot, by any means,

be reduced to clandestine immigration. Belgium's African
landscape is deeply heterogeneous, involving students, dip
lomats, famous artists or sportsmen as well as undocumented
immigrants (see Kagné and Martiniello 2001).
Furthermore, the mainstream European view regarding
sub-Saharan immigration assumes that sub-Saharan migrants
are desperate beings who seek to settle permanently in Europe
in order to escape the African economic horror. This view is
reductive. The "leaving or dying" cliché is singularly ineffective
at capturing the dynamics of Sahelian migration.3 It cannot be
reduced to survival or to mere push and pull factors. Migra
tion practices have to be understood as very moments of self
realization and means to forge personal histories and produce
social identities (see Barrett 2004; Ferguson 1999; Masquelier
2005; Timera 2001).
The current European obsession about clandestine immigra
tion also tends to mask the fact that the sub-Saharan presence
in Belgium is an old and deep-rooted phenomenon. Due to its
colonial past in Central Africa, Belgium has attracted, since
the 1960s, significant flows of people coming from its former
colonies and trusteeships: the current Democratic Republic of
Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. These immigrants have shaped
social and associative landscapes which are particularly vis
ible and dynamic in Brussels (see Grégoire 2010). Since then,
this sub-Saharan presence has continued to develop and to
diversify with the establishment of communities originating
from the Western part of the continent, e.g., Cameroon, Ghana,
Ivory Coast or Angola.

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The Africanization of Brussels is most appar

Matongé neighborhood, named after a popular area
sa, the Congolese capital city. In Brussels, Matongé
neighborhood, filled with boutiques, cafés and r
Matongé is celebrated by the public authorities as
traction and as the symbol of Belgian multicultur
The Quartier Heyvaert: Interstices and Opportun
The Hausa play virtually no part in the commonl

African identity of Brussels represented by Mat
immigrants are part of recent immigration flow
grew to become significant at the turn of the 21st
Belgium, Hausa immigrants are almost exclusivel
ers, i.e., coming from the French-speaking parts o
located in Niger.
The Nigerien community of Belgium is essential
in Brussels, roughly made up of 1,500 people, of
are men, and the average age (29 years) is quite h
2006). It lacks the associative structure of other
migrant communities and shows a strong ethnic p
Nigerien Hausa and Zarma-Songhay communitie
hoods tend to overlap. On the contrary, they are almo
separated from the Tuareg and Fulani ones, orien
the sale of crafts and polarized in different neig
Tuareg and Fulani migrants tend to develop close r
with Europeans, whereas Hausa have little, if any.
see, the life-worlds of the latter are essentially orie
West Africa.
Besides some students and a few political refugees, the bulk
of Hausa immigrants in Belgium include undocumented and
clandestine immigrants. The economic and cultural epicenter
of this small community is located in the streets of the Hey vaert
neighborhood.

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Quartier Hey vaert, actually a few streets

the polar opposite (or the evil twin) of th
hood. For most of Brussels' inhabitants, it is
and desolated area, almost a no-go zone. T
stigmatized as a part of the urban tissue e
tine immigration. As such, it has become,
and politicians, the symbol of the failure
Until the 1970s, however, the econom
flourishing. The neighborhood was, thank
and slaughterhouses, the meatpacking dist
industrial crisis of the mid-1970s led the m
to decline and stripped Hey vaert of its eco
The inhabitants who were able to afford it f
it occupied only by the more recent and f
population.
In the 1990s, new European directives forced the remaining
butcher shops and packing plants to leave the neighborhood
and to relocate their activities in Brussels' newer industrial park.
The vast empty plants and warehouses that the meatpacking
industry had left behind were taken over by used cars dealers.
This activity was pioneered by Lebanese entrepreneurs who
had strong connections with West Africa. Their trade partners
were Beninese, Guineans and Nigeriens who were, for the most
part, located in the port town of Cotonou, Benin (see Beuving
2006; Rosenfeld 2009).The used car trade grew rapidly out of
control, to the point of colonizing the entire area and destroying
what remained of its older social and economic tissue.
Today the Heyvaert neighborhood offers the peculiar vi
sion of rows of garages where second-hand cars are packed
and about to be sent to West Africa. Thanks to Brussels' central
position in Europe, cars come from various European countries.
They are centralized and sold in the Heyvaert neighborhood
before being shipped to Cotonou through the port of Antwerp,
one of Europe's largest sea ports, located 100 km north of Brus

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sels. Once in Cotonou, the cars are sent to Niger

West African hinterland.
The number of used cars shipped every year from Brussels
to Cotonou is estimated at more than 1,000,000. This represents
a quarter of the annual volume of second-hand vehicles circu
lating between Europe and Africa (Rosenfeld 2009).
During the weekend, the Heyvaert neighborhood is bustling
with activity and movement. Its streets are crowded with po
tential buyers, Sahelian merchants on business trips and West
African immigrants willing to guide them. This heterogeneous,
albeit almost exclusively West African, crowd gathers around
used cars to bargain and conclude deals in the open street.
These intense and vibrant economic activities remain largely
informal. As such, the Heyvaert neighborhood is almost en
tirely devoid of connections to other parts of Brussels' urban
tissue. It seems to function only as an extension of West African
markets. The Heyvaert neighborhood shelters an economy
which is, paradoxically, transnational and locked up in a micro
territory. The Sahelian businessmen, who come to Brussels for
business purposes, venture outside the Heyvaert neighborhood
only to catch the plane which will bring them back to Niamey or
Cotounou. As for the immigrants settled around the car trade,
their daily life-worlds are entirely confined to the few streets of
the Heyvaert neighborhood where they hang around a mosque,
an open-air weekly market, a Nigerien restaurant opened in
2004 and the garages and warehouses where they work.
The Dynamics of a Parallel Universe
The movements of the car trade are actually exploited by

another traffic. The second-hand cars do not travel alone to
West Africa. Before being shipped to Cotonou, they are packed
with used goods (televisions and hi-fi equipment, used do

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mestic appliances or old mattresses) to be

of the Sahel.
The seemingly endless flow of dan Belg
shapes the representation of Belgium as a
opportunities. These representations trigg
the Sahel and take the road to Belgium. As
entrepreneur in the car trade, points out:
I'm gonna tell you why the young have go

gium], It is because, here in Niger we say that e
fridges, televisions, everything) is dan Belgiq
Belgium. Everyday, they hear this: dan Belgiq
Most of them, they don't have a clue about w
Tell them that Belgium is in China, they're g
But, everyday, they hear about merchants co
Belgium, that's why they're leaving. If you're
got nothing and someone tells you that in Belgiu
everything... Well, you have to go see that fo
Upon arrival, Brussels actually has not

with the imagined realities of dan Belgique
deal with the uncertainties of clandestine or undocumented sta
tus. Moreover, the living costs are much higher than expected
and the job opportunities offered by Brussels are, at best, scarce.
For Sahelian undocumented immigrants, the informal circuits
of the Heyvaert neighborhood are the main opportunities to
develop lucrative activities. On the one hand, they have to posi
tion themselves as the middlemen for the merchants who, on a
regular basis, come in Heyavert to buy lots of used vehicles. The
role of the middleman is to prospect the market and lead the
merchants to the garages and the cars that may interest them.
These patron-client relationships are generally framed by a
common ethnic and regional belonging or by kin relationships.
On the other hand, the immigrants' most profitable activity is to
buy, collect and store the used commodities that will be shipped
and sold as dan Belgique goods in the Sahel. The used goods are
collected waste or bought through specialized networks. They

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are stored in basements or small warehouses rente

of four or five immigrants. Through the relentless
of people, goods and information, the daily life-w
Heyvaert immigrants are literally covered with Sa
Most of them actually live in the warehouses where
their commodities; that is, they live surrounded by
to be sent to Niger.
Case Study: Sabiou: Stuck Inside dan Belgique
Sabiou has been part of the dan Belgique econom

ing around the garages of Hey vaert, hunting and g
fridges and televisions) for the last five years. He c
embodiment of what Nigeriens have in mind when
about the éveillés, the resourceful people.
Sabiou is a Hausa-speaking Mawri from Dogon
city marking the western end of Hausaland. He
a poor background and spent several years of hi
begging on the streets for the benefit of a makaranta
school.
When he was 15 years old, he left Dogondoucthi to join an
older brother in Niamey. Sabiou was lucky enough to enter, at
the level of bar a (servant), the network of a merchant of Niamey,
a fellow immigrant from Dogondoutchi who was successful in
the imported fruit business. Thanks to this connection, Sabiou
managed to secure low-level but regular jobs. He worked suc
cessively as a citrus fruit vendor, butcher assistant, shopkeeper
and, ultimately, as assistant mechanic for various garage own
ers. At each point, he proved to be smart and patient, slowly
paving his way in the informal street economy of Niamey and
starting small businesses on his own.
Around his 25th year, he was able to afford to marry a girl
from his mother's village. He rented a space in his patron's

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(mai gidä) neighborhood, Boukoki, and so

of two baby girls.
Sabiou, however, felt that his social
sion had leveled off in Niamey. He sei
migrating to Europe as the means of ful
Contrary to Issa (see case study one),
connections which could offer him supp
of his migratory project.
His initial plan was to stay in Brussels for
that, he would have come back to Niger w
launch a bush taxi business connecting N
doucthi area. As for many of Nigerien im
however, things turned out to be more
Upon arrival in Belgium, Sabiou trie
entered an asylum-seeking procedure an
in a collective reception center for foreig
tion of his asylum seeker status by Belgi
chose to remain illegally in Brussels.
He rented a bed in a small apartmen
sometimes six other Hausa immigrant
on construction sites for entrepreneur
power. He spent his spare time observi
and learning the ropes of the Heyvaert t
Sabiou managed to position himself as
in the used-car trade. Simultaneously, he
sell the used commodities which would b
dan Belgique flows. Sabiou proved to be e
ing contacts at both ends of the trade. H
by Nigerien retailers who placed orders
fridges or mattresses while, in Brussels,
East-European immigrants secured him r
such goods.
This situation of relative success did, however, have a cost:
the envisioned single year had become five. Due to his clan
destine status, a short return trip to visit his family was not

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an option. Moreover, his savings were largely insu

launch the bush taxi business he had dreamt about. Like other
immigrants, Sabiou was facing unexpectedly high living costs
and the impossibility to diversify the cash-income strategies
beyond the dan Belgique economy. Furthermore, he had to
send a large part of his monthly income, 30% according to my
estimations, to his family in Niger.
Sabiou felt desperately stuck in Brussels:
I'm tired but I can't go back home. If I go back now,

I won't even own a dime, I won't even able to pay for a
taxi. How am I supposed to explain this? You say you left
to seek big money and you don't bring anything back.
It's not good, you can't do that, people are gonna insult
you. People are gonna say: "Look at that one! He stays
five years in Europe, he left his friends and family and
what did he do? He's got nothing, he didn't even build a
house!" It's not good, you can't come back like that.
Shortly after we met, the police organized a large-scale

operation in the Heyvaert neighborhood to catch clandestine
immigrants. Policemen raided the warehouse, actually the
basement of an old butcher shop, where Sabiou was storing
the used commodities about to be sent to Niger. He managed
to escape but all his belongings were confiscated, ruining the
last months of work and causing him severe financial loss. I
inquired about him to a common friend who said not to worry
about Sabiou: "He is smart, is an éveille, he will be able to start
over." I had little doubt about Sabiou's ability to start over. I
was, however, more concerned about his ability to escape from
Brussels, where the imagined realities of dan Belgique seemed
to have trapped him.

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Multilocalism and the Economies of Attachment
The road to Europe and the experience of migration ar

profoundly transformative processes. Distance and displa
ment alter the immigrants' everyday lives as well as their ve
perception of themselves. Moreover, they have to learn how
shape new relationships with those left behind. The conditio
of immigrants is one of multilocality which is the ability t
distribute one's presence and agency across distant physic
locations (see Burrell 2008; Lo Sardo 2010; Trager 1995).
Immigrants must transcend their absence through materi
flows, i.e., remittances, gifts and commodities sent to the hom
land on a regular basis. According to my estimations, Nigerie
immigrants send 30% of their monthly income to Niger alon
with various material goods. Due to the unrealistic vision of
Europe in Niger, requests for money and gifts are an integra
part of their everyday lives. Besides the basic needs of th
household, much of these remittances are used to fulfill soci
obligations, such as the participation in marriage, baptism,
funeral ceremonies. These material flows act as objectificatio
of the absent and permit to keep up, despite distance and ab
sence, networks of social and affective relationships.
The main vehicle for these circuits of exchange is con
stituted by the car trade itself. Actually, the entire Heyvae
neighborhood functions as a communication infrastructu
oriented towards the West African Sahel and connecting
from capital cities to the remotest rural communities, to th
center of Europe. For Nigerien immigrants settled in Brussel
the flow of second hand cars is the opportunity to pack and
send parcels of perfume, cosmetics, cell phones or money t
those left behind. Symmetrically, the reverse movements allo
the migrant's everyday life to be filled with photos, decorati
artifacts, audiotapes or videotapes, spices and food. Facin
painful feelings of loneliness and uprooting, migrants may al
invest emotionally in material objects which become fragmen

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of their homelands, objectifications of their lov

fabric of certain clothes, the taste of some meals, t
Hausa popular music or the use of personal objects
of re-enchanting their everyday lives. Migrants u
order to shape an intimate sphere which reproduc
the sound and the touch of their homes. This material culture
circulates continuously through networks of exchange. Besides
the survival strategy cliché, transnational channels of migra
tion allow the circulation of an economy of leisure, intimacy
and attachment.
Conclusion: The End of an Era
The Heyvaert neighborhood cannot be reduced to a some

what tragic tale of laissez-faire urban planning. It shows how
West African entrepreneurs may seize what Europe has left to
offer (the urban interstice, the derelict industrial area) to turn it
into spaces of opportunity. In so doing, they allow the Sahelian
systems of trade and mobility to spread further away.
As we have seen, circulation and mobility are central fea
tures of Hausa social and economic landscapes. This ability
to move and spread, however, conflicts with the European
restrictive immigration policies.
When it comes to the migration issue, European media and
policymakers are largely focused on the permanent settlement
of immigrants. Regarding Sahelian migrations, such a focus i
a sure way to miss the point.
None of the Hausa migrants I have met in Brussels is actu
ally willing to settle permanently in Belgium. What they aspir
to is acquiring the savings and legal documents that could a
low them to circulate, and operate trade, without obstruction
between Belgium and Niger.
M., for example, is a Hausa immigrant settled in the Hey
vaert neighborhood. He has collected and sold for five year

36.73.117.215 on Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:23:57 UTC
dan Belgique commodities while waiting t

he puts it:
Europe doesn't understand. Europe is like

can't escape it. We don't want to stay for ages
No, what I want is to buy stuff here and to go s
Niger and then to go back in Belgium to buy
Due to repressive measures, Hausa immi

trapped in Brussels where they extend the
some regards, they are stuck in a kind of
daily life-worlds confined to a neighborho
tions as an extension of West Africa. Their desires are oriented
toward their home, and shaped in anticipation of their return.
It seems that their identities are neither in Belgium nor in Niger
but in the very channels connecting them. Their netherworld
is, however, a very busy one. The second-hand cars of Heya
vert, packed with used commodities, continue to flow and to
saturate the Nigerien everyday.
Some signs, however, seem to indicate that the car trade of
Heyvaert may have reached the end of an era. In Brussels, the
neighborhood seems to be on the verge of losing the veil of
opacity which protects its informal economies. The area faces
increasing public scrutinization due to both the gentrification
pressure of adjacent areas and to a public debate increasingly
focused on clandestine immigration, urban pacification and
the eradication of the so-called zones de non-droit.
At the other end of the spectrum, in Niger, the dan Belgique
economy has faced both a situation of market saturation and the
emergence of rising competitors. Since the mid-2000s, Hausa
traders have begun to import lots of cars, both used and new,
from North America and the Persian Gulf. Moreover, the first
years of the 21st century have been marked by the deepening
economic involvement of China in West Africa (see Michel and
Beuret 2008). As a result, China has become in Niger the main
supplier of everyday commodities. These new trade circuits

36.73.117.215 on Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:23:57 UTC
have been paralleled by the multiplication of "Chin

in Nigerien cities. These stores sell absolutely every
domestic appliances to shoes or prayer rugs) at disc
These chinoiseries are much cheaper and more easi
than the dan Belgique goods.
As the flows of trade and migration mirror and
other, Hausa businessmen have traced new trade
Shanghai or Guangzhou while immigrants have
communities in Montreal, New York City, Jeddah
These locations shape the Nigerien everyday a
Europe does. In this regard, the Arabic Middle East,
ined world of both economic prosperity and Islamic
probably the more salient. The Mashreq is nowaday
within Nigerien landscapes, social imaginaries a
cultures with, e.g., corner stores and barber shops l
stores or Al-Qaida, brand new mosques funded by S
or the significant spread of the Saudi-like hijab.
These dynamics seem to outline new transnation
phies within which Europe is, in regard to West Af
left behind. Given the longstanding adaptability an
of the Sahelian trade, one cannot help but think abo
of a new world to come.
Case Study: Hamidou, Brave New Worlds
Hamidou has, for many years, moved commodities across

the Sahel. Since the turn of the 21st century, he has also mas
tered the flow of used cars and goods which shapes the dan
Belgique economy.
Hamidou is a native from Bouza, a town located in the
south of the Ader region. This extremely arid area, the capital
of which is the city of Tahoua, stretches from the Niger / Nigeria
border to the Malian border and the southern fringes of the
Sahara desert. The Ader is known for its high emigration rate,

36.73.117.215 on Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:23:57 UTC
fierce entrepreneurs and typical blend

cultural identities.
Hamidou is a man of deep kinship and economic networks.

He is part, albeit on a somewhat peripheral manner, of one of
the powerful Aderawa families who dominate large sectors of
the informal economies of Niamey and Tahoua.
In his early 20s, Hamidou left his hometown to settle in
the capital city. He entered, as a yaro (child), the network of a
relative who was trading construction materials in the Katako
market as well as importing used cars. Hamidou bought used
commodities, mostly televisions, in Niamey. He transported
them to sell them in Saharan towns such as Ghât in Libya or
Tamanrasset in Algeria which had important markets of used
SUVs bought from European and North-American tourists.
Hamidou bought cars and drove them back across the Sahara
to sell them in Tahoua or Niamey.
As things were going well, Hamidou became a key element
in the trade network within which he was involved. Hamidou
started to settle as a prosperous young merchant, he married
twice and bought a piece of land in Banizoumbou II, a neigh
borhood of the northern outskirts of Niamey populated by
wealthy Aderawa businessmen.
The Tuareg rebellion of 1991 was a brutal hit for Hamidou.
The uprising, and the armed conflict which followed, led to
the collapse of the Saharan tourism industry. Even after the
peace treaty of 1995, the Saharan routes remained too unsafe
for him to practice his business.
He nonetheless continued to import cars but in a more
scattered manner, traveling to Chad, Nigeria or Ghana when
interesting deals were to be found.
In the late 1990s, the rise of the Heyvaert car trade in
Brussels gave him the opportunity to refocus his activities.
Suddenly, the landscapes of Niamey seemed to be shaped by
the imagined realities of Belgium and every part of the city
appeared to be filled with dan Belgique cars and commodities.

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As a bold entrepreneur, Hamidou decided to pro

new market. Through his network contacts, he co
quaintances to accommodate him in Brussels. The f
he stayed one month in Belgium, the second time
The aim of these initial journeys was to establish c
with Lebanese garage owners, streetwise Hausa i
and potential right-hand men.
As the enterprise was a success, Hamidou started
dan Belgique things (mainly cars, televisions an
appliances) on a regular basis. He traveled to Bru
eight weeks and almost never ventured out of th
neighborhood.
At one point, his business was going so well tha
thought of settling permanently in Brussels. He
procedure to obtain asylum seeker status which w
This rejection eventually appeared to be a good thi
intervened approximately when the Heyvaert ca
starting to slow down. In 2009, Hamidou was categ
it, all the dan Belgique economy was a thing from
(...) two or three years ago, everybody was in Be

to buy vehicles. There was like, maybe, 100 people
who went to Brussels to buy stuff there and brought it ba
Niger. Nowadays, I think they are fewer than 10. Belg
over, all the dan Belgique thing is over. The smartest t
they go to America now. The car market is good there
more and more cars coming from America, nobody wil
to buy European cars anymore. They're too expensive.
bought in quartier Heyvaert, they're gonna sell it to yo
millions [CFA Franc] here, an equivalent one is gonna
for three millions if it's bought in America.
Hamidou was planning a prospective trip to G

North Carolina. In the mid-1990s, the city of Gree
sheltered Sahelian immigrant workers and trade
flown the toughness of New York City in search of
and affordable places to live. Since then Greensbor

36.73.117.215 on Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:23:57 UTC
the home of a rapidly growing Nigerien com

point of being dubbed Little Niamey.
At the same time, Hamidou also began to e
of his networks to the East. He started to im
Dubai and, mimicking the practices he had learn
Hamidou teamed up with fellow Aderawa bus
the cars as vehicles for goods, mainly clothe
sold in the markets of Niamey
Moreover, the deepening economic engagem
West Africa is, in regard to the social and eco
of the Sahel, a game-changing phenomenon. I
new dynamics, Hamidou's business partner in
(Souley) recently began to bypass the Emirate
specifically the city of Guangzhou, is a more
source of commodities such as clothes, shoes
Let me tell you a story, one of my friends [S

used to come with me to Dubai. He would buy
there and bring them back with the cars. Well,
has been two times to China because all his friends who
are also in the clothes business advised him to do so.
One night he was there, sitting in the lobby of the hotel
or something and guess who's coming? The guy from
Dubai! The very one guy he used to buy clothes from! He
comes to the guy to greet him:" You don't recognize me? I
used to buy stuff from you over there in Dubai?" and the
guy said: "Well, now you know my secret! It is here that I
buy the stuff I sell back home." You see, Nigeriens are fed
up of always being the middlemen. Now, that we have
seen the source, we're gonna go straight to it.
NOTES
The term "Hausaland" refers to a portion of the Sahelian

located between the Niger river and Lake Chad. The northern
of it belongs to the Republic of Niger and the southern to th
eral Republic of Nigeria. The Hausa, with about 20 million p

36.73.117.215 on Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:23:57 UTC
in Nigeria and more than 5 million in Niger, dominate

patchwork of these national states and constitutes, by
the largest ethnic groups of West Africa. Furthermore
language, spoken by more than 14 million people as a
language, has become one of Africa's main vehicular la
The notion of "Hausa" as a linguistic vehicle and / or mode
belonging concerns more than 40 million people.
The past decades have seen the intensification of flow
goods and ideas linking Hausaland to the Arabic Middle
dynamics have followed the closely interrelated paths o
Islam, e.g., with an increased participation of Hausa in
age to Mecca, the stay of students in the Islamic universiti
Arabia or the settlement of trade-oriented Hausa communities
around the Persian Gulf. These flows have, since the 1970s, been
instrumental to the process labeled as the Hausa Islamic revival
(see Larkin and Meyer 2006; Miles 2003). While Islam has been as
sociated with the Hausa identity for centuries, the recent dynamics
of Islam in the Hausa world raise critical issues as highlighted by
the recurring inter-religious violence that sheds blood on Northern
and Central Nigeria.
As Mehmet Timera (2001) showed, people facing situations of ex
treme poverty cannot afford to leave and to practice transnational
migration. Immigration is in some respects a luxury which requires
savings as well as kinship and economic networks.
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Dan Belgique: The Making Of Hausa Transnational Spaces Between Brussels And The

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24643192

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Centre d Anthropologie Culturelle

ABSTRACT: The Hausa, spreading from their homelands in the

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are creating, through flows of money, gifts and info

I was in Niamey, Niger, conducting fieldwork am

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Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography, c

The Hausa Mobility Systems

The Hausa constitute one of the major

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market, visiting relatives in Niamey, flying to Pari

Through these historical dynamics, the Hausa have shaped

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in coastal cities such as Lagos, Abidjan, Co

Case Study: Issa, A Classic Tale of Nige

Issa was born in 1974, the year of the dr

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getting better up north, Issa's father decided to tak

You can't become someone here. There's no work,

When he was 19, he moved back to Maradi to live with

L'exode (French for exodus) refers to the movements through

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and gifts (like clothes or perfume) to distrib

After this initial journey, Issa returned several times to La

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just by vending teas on the street. Moreover, acco

The main inconsistency in Issa's migratory project was th

I did it in Lagos and Lagos is tough you know. You

Sub-Saharan African Presence in Brussels

Belgium, as much of northwestern Europe, has a long his

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to create an institutionalized integration

The sub-Saharan presence in Belgium cannot, by any means,

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The Africanization of Brussels is most appar

The Quartier Heyvaert: Interstices and Opportun

The Hausa play virtually no part in the commonl

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Quartier Hey vaert, actually a few streets

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sels. Once in Cotonou, the cars are sent to Niger

The Dynamics of a Parallel Universe

The movements of the car trade are actually exploited by

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mestic appliances or old mattresses) to be

I'm gonna tell you why the young have go

Upon arrival, Brussels actually has not

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are stored in basements or small warehouses rente

Case Study: Sabiou: Stuck Inside dan Belgique

Sabiou has been part of the dan Belgique econom

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(mai gidä) neighborhood, Boukoki, and so

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an option. Moreover, his savings were largely insu

I'm tired but I can't go back home. If I go back now,

Shortly after we met, the police organized a large-scale

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Multilocalism and the Economies of Attachment

The road to Europe and the experience of migration ar