International audienceThe way of talking about migrants returning from Ivory Coast has changed throughout the postcolonial period in Burkina Faso. Basing on different kinds of oral or written speeches (particularly written literature and songs), the way a dominant discourse not much favourable to migration has been constructed since the independences of theses states until the war in Ivory Coast (in the beginning of the 2000’s), simultaneously to some important migratory movements between the two countries, is examined here. Speeches about Burkinabe migrations seem to be based on a paradox indeed: whereas the discourses carried by some intellectuals, singers or politics give a depreciating image of the migrants and of their input, the impor...