West African Migrations

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. West African Migrations and Globalization: Introduction

   • Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké Okome, Olufemi Vaughan

   Pages 1-13

3. “You can’t go Home no More”: Africans in America in the Age of Globalization

   • Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké Okome

   Pages 15-40

4. Transnational Identity Formation as a Kaleidoscopic Process: Social Location, Geography, and the Spirit Of Critical Engagement

   • Samuel Zalanga

   Pages 41-76

5. What to Wear? Dress And Transnational African Identity

   • Elisha P. Renne

   Pages 77-100

6. Insurgent Transnational Conversations in Nigeria’s “Nollywood” Cinema

   • Peyi Soyinka-Airewele

   Pages 101-143

7. Centripetal Forces: Reconciling Cosmopolitan Lives and Local Loyalty in a Malian Transnational Social Field

   • Bruce Whitehouse

   Pages 145-165

8. Toward an African Muslim Globality: The Parading of Transnational Identities In Black America

   • Zain Abdullah

   Pages 167-206

9. African Migrant Worker Militancy in the Global North: Labor Contracting and Independent Worker Organizing in New York City

   • Immanuel Ness

   Pages 207-232

10. Transnational Memories and Identity

    • Titilayo Ufomata

    Pages 233-246

11. Arrested Nationalism, Imposed Transnationalism, and the African Literature Classroom: One Nigerian Writer’s Learning Curve

    • Pius Adesanmi

    Pages 247-261

12. Back Matter

    Pages 263-280

    PDF

Drawing on the interdisciplinary research projects of scholars from various social science and humanities disciplines, this book explores how African migration to Western countries after the neo-liberal economic reforms of the 1980s transformed West African states and their new transnational populations in Western countries.

• globalization
• identity
• migration
• Nation
• national identity
• nationalism
• population
• Transnational

'West African Migrations complicates past 'isms' and present 'scapes' of our global era by humanizing the homeland or the diaspora as a space of constantly shifting conjunctures, monologues, and disjunctures-ultimately conditioned by the trans-migrant's state of mind. In this timely volume, Africa and the West locate a neutral nexus for a long overdue dialogue. A must read for scholars and general readers seeking new meanings for our liminal existence within and without increasingly artificial borders.' - Niyi Afolabi, associate professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, University of Texas at Austin and co-editor of Trans-Atlantic Migration: The Paradoxes of Exile

'West African Migrations is an important and timely contribution to our understanding of the new processes of identity formation and migration in the age of neo-liberal globalization. The contributions in this volume present crucial insights into the complex experiences of African migrants in the Western world as well as the changes they are enacting in their new host countries. It is a must read.' - James Genova, associate professor and program coordinator for History, The Ohio State University-Marion

'In this timely contribution to the growing body of migration studies in Africa, Okome and Vaughan have brought together a range of contributions that is both rigorous and insightful. A highly recommended book!' - Insa Nolte, Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, UK

MOJÚBÀOLÚ OLÚFÚNKÉ OKOME Professor of Political Science at CUNY-Brooklyn College, USA.
OLUFEMI VAUGHAN Director of the Africana Studies Program at Bowdoin College, USA.

Policies and ethics