How male West African migrants conceptualise work : exploring the relationship between migrants, their colleagues and their Maltese employers

Abstract

This dissertation explores West African male irregular migrants' experiences in the labour market in Malta, specifically migrants from Ghana, Chad and the Ivory Coast. The research takes a holistic view, encompassing the background that the migrants arrive with in Malta, their level of education, the different types of jobs they find while living in Malta and the relationships that the migrants develop with their employers and their colleagues. The research challenges the notion that African migrant workers are continually exploited by their employers and instead suggests that the migrants go on a 'work journey', gaining better jobs and benefits over time. Looking beyond the actual workplace, the research also shines a light on how the relationship between the migrants and their employers often enters the domestic sphere, with employers lending money to their migrant workers or helping them solve other personal problems. Also scrutinised are the migrants' financial needs, such as daily expenses, credit and money needed for remittances. This helps us understand what the migrants' expectations are when they look for a job, and how they go about saving, spending and investing their wages. Although at face value, the dissertation deals with the economics of economic anthropology, its underlying theme is how the migrants use their economic potential in Malta to achieve social mobility back in their home country. Essential to this social mobility is the migrants' ability to network and build social capital in a Maltese economy which is similar in its scale to the African economies that the migrants come from.