Year: 2026 | Month: July | Volume: 13 | Issue: 7 | Pages: 383-396
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20260740
Mechanisms for Integrating Migrants in Rural Areas: End of a Cycle, New Horizons
Anne-Marie Lobe1, Guy Charles Kokoret Kouakou2, Honoré Mimche3
1Institute of Governance, Humanities and Social Sciences, Pan African University, Yaoundé, Cameroon
2Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Jean Lorougnon Guédé University, Côte d’Ivoire
3IFORD, University of Yaoundé II, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Corresponding Author: Anne-Marie Lobe
ABSTRACT
Tutoring has long been the primary mechanism for integrating migrants into rural communities in Côte d’Ivoire. Today, this mechanism faces major challenges that call its effectiveness into question. This paper analyses the decline of tutorship as a traditional mechanism of integration and examines the emergence of alternative institutional structures, through the lens of the socio-anthropology of migration and local governance. It draws on a qualitative approach utilising semi-structured interviews and field observations conducted in the sub-prefecture of Soubré. This study reveals that tutoring, once a pillar of migrants’ social integration in rural areas, is undergoing a profound crisis linked to generational shifts and the commodification of land relations. In response, structures such as the COGES, the CVGFR and the CNRCT are emerging as alternative mechanisms, offering hope but facing challenges of legitimacy and governance.
Keywords: guardianship, integration, rural areas, alternative mechanisms, Côte d’Ivoire
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