Africans in Global Migration

Searching for Promised Lands

Edited by John A. Arthur; Joseph Takougang and Thomas Owusu - Contributions by Janet Awokoya; Nemata Blyden; Bassirou Tidjani; Msia Kibona Clark; Hilary Chala Kowino; Tatenda T. Mambo; Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké Okome; Mary Johnson Osirim and Ian Yeboah

Four overarching themes underscore the essays in this book. These are the creation of African diaspora community and institutional structures; the structured and shared relationships among African immigrants, host, and homeland societies; the construction and negotiation of diaspora spaces, and domains (racial, ethnic, class consciousness, including identity politics; and finally African migrant economic integration, occupational, and labor force roles and statuses and impact on host societies. Each of the thematic themes has been chosen with one specific goal in mind: to depict and represent the critical components in the reconstitution of the African diaspora in international migration. We contextualized the themes in the African diaspora as a dynamic process involving what Paul Zeleza called the “diasporization” of African immigrant settlement communities in global transnational spaces. These themes also reflect the diversities inherent in the diaspora communities and call attention to the fluid and dynamic boundaries within which Africans create, diffuse, and engage host and home societies. In this context, the themes outlined in this book embody the diaspora tapestries woven by the immigrants to center African social and cultural forms in their host societies and communities. Collectively, the themes represent pathways for the elucidation of understanding African immigrant territorialization. Our purpose is to map out and identify the sources and sites for the contestations of the myriad of cultural manifestations of the new African diaspora and its depictions within the totality of the shared meanings and appropriations of the essences of African-ness or African blackness. The vulnerabilities, struggles, threats (internal or external to the immigrant community), and opportunities emanating from the diasporic relationships that these immigrants create are accentuated within the nexus of African global migrations. We view the African diaspora in terms of spatial and geographic constructions and propagations of African cultural identities and institutional forms in global domains whose boundaries are not static but rather dynamic, complex, and multidimensional. Simply stated, we approach the African diaspora from a perspective that incorporates the historical, as well as contemporary postmodern constructions of the Africa’s dispersed communities and their associated transnational identity forms.

Lexington Books

Pages: 348 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-0-7391-7406-7 • Hardback • August 2012 • $150.00 • (£115.00)

978-0-7391-9800-1 • Paperback • June 2014 • $68.99 • (£53.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Emigration & Immigration, History / Africa / General, Social Science / Human Geography, Social Science / Regional Studies, Social Science / World / Africa, Political Science / Developing Nations

Africans in Global Migration

Searching for Promised Lands

Hardback

Paperback

Summary

Four overarching themes underscore the essays in this book. These are the creation of African diaspora community and institutional structures; the structured and shared relationships among African immigrants, host, and homeland societies; the construction and negotiation of diaspora spaces, and domains (racial, ethnic, class consciousness, including identity politics; and finally African migrant economic integration, occupational, and labor force roles and statuses and impact on host societies. Each of the thematic themes has been chosen with one specific goal in mind: to depict and represent the critical components in the reconstitution of the African diaspora in international migration. We contextualized the themes in the African diaspora as a dynamic process involving what Paul Zeleza called the “diasporization” of African immigrant settlement communities in global transnational spaces. These themes also reflect the diversities inherent in the diaspora communities and call attention to the fluid and dynamic boundaries within which Africans create, diffuse, and engage host and home societies. In this context, the themes outlined in this book embody the diaspora tapestries woven by the immigrants to center African social and cultural forms in their host societies and communities. Collectively, the themes represent pathways for the elucidation of understanding African immigrant territorialization. Our purpose is to map out and identify the sources and sites for the contestations of the myriad of cultural manifestations of the new African diaspora and its depictions within the totality of the shared meanings and appropriations of the essences of African-ness or African blackness. The vulnerabilities, struggles, threats (internal or external to the immigrant community), and opportunities emanating from the diasporic relationships that these immigrants create are accentuated within the nexus of African global migrations. We view the African diaspora in terms of spatial and geographic constructions and propagations of African cultural identities and institutional forms in global domains whose boundaries are not static but rather dynamic, complex, and multidimensional. Simply stated, we approach the African diaspora from a perspective that incorporates the historical, as well as contemporary postmodern constructions of the Africa’s dispersed communities and their associated transnational identity forms.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 348 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-0-7391-7406-7 • Hardback • August 2012 • $150.00 • (£115.00)

978-0-7391-9800-1 • Paperback • June 2014 • $68.99 • (£53.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Emigration & Immigration, History / Africa / General, Social Science / Human Geography, Social Science / Regional Studies, Social Science / World / Africa, Political Science / Developing Nations

Author

Dr. John A. Arthur is professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Minnesota, Duluth campus. He received his Ph.D. from Penn State University. His research interests include international migration, the African diaspora, race and ethnic relations, and minorities and the criminal justice system.

Dr. Joseph Takougang is professor of African history in the department of Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio. His interests include colonial and post-colonial Africa, with a focus on Cameroon nationalism and post-colonial political developments in Cameroon. A secondary research area focuses on the African Diaspora in the United States.

Dr Thomas Owusu is associate professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Urban Studies, William Paterson University of New Jersey. His research interests include the changing social geography of North American cities, immigrants and North America cities, dynamics of urban economic and demographic change, and comparative urban development and policy.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Searching for Promised Lands: Conceptualization of the African Diaspora in Migration
John A. Arthur, Joseph Takougang and Thomas Owusu
Chapter 2: The Role of Ghanaian Immigrant Associations in Canada
Thomas Owusu
Chapter 3: Identity Formation and Integration Among Bicultural Immigrant Blacks
Msia Kibona Clark
Chapter 4: Identity Politics of Ghanaian Immigrants in the Greater Cincinnati Area: Emerging Geography and Sociology of Immigrant Experiences
Ian E. A. Yeboah
Chapter 5: Reconciling Multiple Black Identities: The Case of 1.5 and 2.0 Nigerian Immigrants
Janet T. Awokoya
Chapter 6: Making In-Roads: African Immigrants and Business Opportunities in the United States
Joseph Takougang and Bassirou Tidjani
Chapter 7: Geography of Globalized Nursing Markets: Zimbabwean Migrant Nurse Trajectory and Work Experiences in the United Kingdom
Ian E. A. Yeboah and Tatenda T. Mambo
Chapter 8: Relationships Among Blacks in the Diaspora: African and Caribbean Immigrants and American-Born Blacks
Nemata Blyden
Chapter 9: Conceptualizing the Attitudes of African Americans Towards United States Immigration Policies
John A. Arthur
Chapter 10: African Immigrant Relationships With Homeland Countries
Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké Okome
Chapter 11: African Women in the New Diaspora: Transnationalism and the (Re)Creation of Home
Mary Johnson Osirim
Chapter 12: Border Questions in African Diaspora Literature
Hilary Chala Kowino
Chapter 13: Modeling the Determinants of Voluntary Reverse Migration Flows and Repatriations of African Immigrants
John A. Arthur
Chapter 14: Africans in Global Migration: Still Searching for Promised Lands
John A. Arthur and Thomas Owusu

Reviews

A strong and important contribution to the literature and understanding of the current issues facing Africans in the diaspora. Through voluntary or forced migration many Africans join the desperate bid to engage in the global economy, far from the violence of failed states, corrupt regimes or countries burdened by poverty. This volume maps their varied and complex journeys and multiple strategies for survival. The detailed research and expert analyses provided by the contributors will shape future policy on the challenges of global immigration in particular from the countries of Africa.
— Tanya Lyons, President of the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific, and Senior Lecturer in International Studies at Flinders University, Australia

"A truly comprehensive and in-depth book on Africa's new diaspora in the context of postcolonialism and globalization. This volume contains excellent studies on complex African national and transnational networks in a globalized world."
— Olufemi Vaughan, Amherst College