Sticking to God: Brokers of Hope in Senegalese Migration to Argentina

This chapter examines the regularization program for undocumented migrants in Argentina, implemented at the beginning of 2013, in order to explore how the affected group of migrants perceived the opportunity to transcend their irregular status and the process of law-making. From being a gift of societal hope in the form of individual rights it became, apart from the actual document, a sign of confirmation that one had the blessings of God and was on the right moral path-not only as an individual but also as a collective. Hence, rather than granting state recognition and legal papers, the regularization program reaffirmed and infused an affective hope of the possibility of overcoming hardship through a good relationship with God, a spiritual master, and a collective discipline. Sticking to God was thus a way of keeping the world open rather than being weighed down by global stratification factors, where race and geographical placement do not favor Senegalese migrants.