The dream is to leave Imagining migration and mobility through sport in Senegal

The dream of a sports career can also have a significant impact on the lives of would-be athletes and their families, in terms of financial planning, education and work choices, and marriage. Finally, the relationship between the category of athletic mobility and other forms of migration and mobility is complex and shifting, as the popular dream of athletic migration among young Senegalese men is embedded within a broader context of migratory ambitions and dispositions. When young men in Dakar dream of the future, they often imagine the need to move overseas in order to find success. They may experience staying in Dakar as forced immobility or “killing time” – an experience that mirrors accounts of boredom and “waithood” of young people in other locations in Africa. In a country where remittances form a significant part of family income and migration is seen as indicative of successful masculinity, such “imaginaries of exile” proliferate.