"This gorgeous ethnography of borderlands, migration, and belonging in West Africa demonstrates the key role of language as infrastructure for and articulation of mobility. There are valuable lessons in these stories of resilience through 'the pursuit of relations' in times of Ebola, hardship, and a mining boom. Sweet's emphasis on the material force of speaking practices, across ritual, economic exchange, travel, conflict, and ordinary conversation, transforms how we think about humanity in motion."—Kristina Wirtz, author of Performing Afro-Cuba: Image, Voice, Spectacle in the Making of Race and History
"A compelling study of the arts of talk and how they enable people to move around through meaningful places and relationships. Sweet offers a vivid and engaging picture of southeast Senegal and the social lives of people who live there or pass through it. As this book shows, mobility isn't just about an individual and their intentions; instead, it is saturated with social relations and talk, linguistic practices in which relationships are created and enacted. The linguistic varieties someone uses, the stories they tell, the conversational genres they engage in, and the names of places and people — all these create meaningful trajectories: histories and futures of movement, place, and social connection."—Judith T. Irvine, author of Signs of Difference: Language and Ideology in Social Life
