This research focuses on a major transformation in the international management of migration in Africa: the participation of
return migrants (also called "returnees") in migration control in their countries of origin. No longer "heroes of
return" encouraging the younger generation to migrate, nor even failed migrants in their communities of origin, returnees are
increasingly encouraged to involve in initiatives aimed at strengthening migration control from their country of origin, be it through
awareness-raising campaigns against irregular migration or assistance and reintegration programmes towards their peers. To what
extent does the participation of returnees in migration control transform their relationship to mobility? Does it lead to their
incorporation of imaginaries of immobility? Or does it operate as a resource in the definition of reintegration or migration
strategies? To answer these questions, this project uses the concept of "indigenous intermediation", which allows to grasp the
ambiguous involvement of returnees in migration control. The latter are indeed likely to reappropriate their participation in the
fight against irregular migration according to their own agendas. In this context, the project assumes that the "indigenous
intermediation" performed by returnees transforms both the exercise of migration control, and their own experience of return and
relationship to mobility, as well as social relations at the local level. The project draws on ethnographic research carried out
in a comparative perspective in Senegal and Mali.