Migration decision making and heterogeneities, infrastructures and trajectories of African migrations

This report examines migrant decision-making processes among African populations through a comparative, multi-sited qualitative study conducted in Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and diasporas in Italy and the UK. Drawing on 179 semi-structured interviews and 18 longitudinal digital diaries collected between 2023 and 2024, it reveals migration aspirations, planning and trajectories as iterative and contextually contingent, rather than linear or predetermined.

Analysis demonstrates significant heterogeneity in decision-making stages - from non-migration and aspiration to preparation, transit, settlement, and return - with participants frequently oscillating between these positions amid evolving personal circumstances, social networks and structural constraints. Legal statuses varied widely, encompassing internal migrants, regional movers, refugees, long-term European residents, returnees, and users of regular/irregular pathways.

Coding of transcripts employed a collaborative, multi-researcher approach across country teams, yielding node memos that facilitated cross-national thematic synthesis and minimized bias through generous, overlapping application at the paragraph level. Digital diaries captured temporal dynamics over six months, highlighting shifts in strategies influenced by uncertainty, waiting, and real-time information flows via WhatsApp and social media.

Findings disrupt traditional push-pull models by foregrounding non-linear temporalities and the interplay of formal (e.g., NGOs, agencies) and informal infrastructures (e.g., kin, brokers, peers). This underscores the need for migration policies attuned to diverse African-European corridors, emphasizing empirical complexity over simplified dichotomies.

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Following the framework of recent theoretical and methodological developments on migration decision making within and beyond Africa in D2.1, focusing on trajectories, temporalities and dynamics, this report presents the results of extensive fieldwork in three African countries (Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria) and in their diasporas in Italy and the United Kingdom which helps to better understand the decision-making process of heterogeneous groups of aspiring migrants at different stages in their potential and actual journeys. Interviews were conducted with 179 respondents, of whom 18 agreed to participate in digital diaries which yielded a longitudinal perspective over 6 months of their decision-making. Unlike many studies, the research encompassed a wide range of migratory statuses, ranging from those who had no intention to migrate, those aspiring both with and without plans, those who had migrated and were in transit or had decided to settle and returnees as well as refugees. For those who had made plans or who had migrated, the results focussed on the how and outcomes of their migration, namely in the ways they were intending to or had navigated their journeys through the use of informal means, such as family, friends and peers and digital sources of information such as social media as well as formal infrastructure, such as recruitment agencies. In addition, NGOs and international organisations, especially for refugees, were turned to for advice and support in terms of their lives in transit or in destination countries, outcomes and trajectories.