Abstract
We used the methods of biographical narrative interview and biographical case reconstruction to understand and explain the experiences of mobility of migrants from West Africa in Brazil. The article is theoretically grounded on the sociology of knowledge, the phenomenological sociology, and the sociology of figurations and processes. The results point out to a) the limitations of the use of restrictive categories for the understanding of the phenomenon, as the ones based on geographic axes; b) the importance of reconstructing the movements of migrants before and after their migration courses; and c) the transformation of ethnic and religious belongings and of personal and family assets in strategies that avoid reducing the causes for migration to structural constraints.
Keywords
migration courses; biographical research; belonging; displacement; West Africa