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.

This volume examines migration between Africa and Europe, rather than just from Africa to Europe. Based on a unique socio-demographic survey carried out both in origin and destination countries (MAFE survey), it argues that return migration, circulation, and transnational practices are significant. Policy design must also take these factors into account. Comparing in a systematic way three flows of African migrants (from Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Senegal), this study offers a new view on the patterns, determinants, and family and economic effects of migration. By comparing six European countries (Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK), it shows that the dynamics of migration differ greatly in new vs. old destination countries. Based on a statistical analysis of life histories, this study provides a dynamic view of migration that will help readers better understand current trends as well as future trajectories. It will appeal to researchers, academics, practitioners, and others interested in taking a deeper look in (im)migration issues.

A timely interdisciplinary, comparative and historical perspective on African childhood migration that draws on the experience of children themselves to look at where, why and how they move - within and beyond the continent - andthe impact of African child migration globally.

This book discusses regional and continental integration in Africa by examining the management of migration across the continent. It examines borders and securitisation of migration and the challenges and opportunities that arise out of reconfigured continental demographics. The book offers insights on intra-Africa migrations and highlights how intra-continental migration creates socio-economic and cultural borders. It explores how these borders, beyond the physical boundaries of states, including the Berlin Conference-constructed borders, create cultural divides, challenges for economic integration and cross-border security, and irregular migration patterns. While the movement of economic goods is valued for regional economic integration, the mobility of people is seen as a threat. This approach to migration contradicts the intentions of true integration and development, and triggers negative responses such as xenophobia that cannot be addressed by simply managing the physical border and allowing free movement. This book engages in a pivotal discussion of these issues, which are hitherto missing in African border studies, by demonstrating the ubiquity and overreaching influence of various kinds of borders on the African continent. With multidisciplinary contributions that provide an in-depth understanding of intra-Africa migrations and strategies for enhanced migration management, this book will be a useful resource for scholars and students studying geography, politics, security studies, development studies, African studies and sociology.

Spurred by major changes in the world economy and in local ecology, the contemporary migration of Africans, both within the continent and to various destinations in Europe and North America, has seriously affected thousands of lives and livelihoods. The contributors to this volume, reflecting a variety of disciplinary perspectives, examine the causes and consequences of this new migration. The essays cover topics such as rural-urban migration into African cities, transnational migration, and the experience of immigrants abroad, as well as the issues surrounding migrant identity and how Africans re-create community and strive to maintain ethnic, gender, national, and religious ties to their former homes.

In 2015, an unprecedented number of people from Africa and the Near East took flight and sought refuge in Europe. By the end of that year, some 1.8 million migrants had arrived in the EU, the vast majority having come across the Mediterranean. Since then, despite measures to host some of the people fleeing the Syrian war in Turkey and concurrent attempts to physically seal off some borders in Eastern Europe, the numbers of refugees traveling to Europe has continued to top half a million annually. A mass migration on a scale not witnessed in modern times is underway, and it has presented Europe with its greatest challenge of the twenty-first century. Asfa-Wossen Asserate argues here that building higher fences or finding more effective methods of integration will only, in the long term, perpetuate rather than solve the problems associated with these large numbers of displaced refugees. We need to realize that we are only treating the symptoms of an oncoming catastrophe and that, if we are to respond to mass migration, we will ultimately have to understand its causes. African Exodus places its emphasis firmly on the causes of the refugee crisis, which are to be found not least in Europe itself, and charts ways in which we might deal with it effectively in the long term. In the course of this analysis, Asserate asks why our view of Africa—a troubled continent, but rich in so many ways—is so distorted. How can we combat the corrupt, authoritarian regimes that stymie progress and development? Why are millions fleeing to Europe? How is the EU complicit in the migration crisis? And finally, in practical terms: what can be done, and what prospects does the future hold?