Emerging insights from our work in Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria
Omololá Olárìndé and Necla Acik share some of the emerging findings of our research, focusing on social media and gender, and reflect on what they take away from the DYNAMIG workshops that took place in Ilara-Mokin, Nairobi and Rabat.
Knowledge production cannot be done in isolation. Throughout our research and analysis, we aim to incorporate the knowledge, priorities and concerns of diverse groups who influence or are impacted by migration and migration-related policies. That is why, beyond integrating these groups into our research, we organise workshops with policymakers and migration experts at key stages.
Following a workshop series with EU policymakers in Brussels in 2023, we recently held three policy workshops in Ilara-Mokin, Nairobi and Rabat for policymakers and experts from Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco and beyond. We presented the initial results that emerged from our qualitative interviews with over 150 people in Kenya, Nigeria and Morocco – people who are considering or planning to migrate, who have migrated or who are migrating for a variety of reasons – and from our digital diary submissions of a select subgroup of the larger cohort. We also discussed the results of our work analysing over half a million Facebook posts in Kenyan, Moroccan and Nigerian groups and of our analysis of the literature on migration trajectories, temporalities and dynamics in Africa and on gender.
What did we find so far?
While there is a lot more to unpack and say about the work we discussed and recognising that we cover several other themes, we want to share some emerging insights on two cross-cutting topics: social media and gender. These aim to provide nuanced perspectives that can enhance existing research on migration decision-making and offer insights to policymakers and other experts.
