West African Migrations: Transnational and Global Pathways in a New Century [Hardcover]

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.West African Migrations and Globalization: Introduction; M.O.Okome ?& O.Vaughan ? 'You can't go home no more,' Africans in America in the Age of Globalization; M.O.Okome ? Transnational Identity Formation as a Kaleidoscopic Process: Social Location, Geography, and the Spirit of Critical Engagement; S.Zalanga ? What to Wear? Dress and Transnational African Identity; E.P.Renne ? Insurgent Transnational Conversations in Nigeria's 'Nollywood' Cinema; P.Soyinka-Airewele ? Centripetal forces: Reconciling cosmopolitan lives and local loyalty in a Malian transnational social field; B.Whitehouse ? Towards an African Muslim Globality: The Parading of Transnational Identities in Black America; Z.Abdullah? African Migrant Worker Militancy in the Global North: Labor Contracting and Independent Worker Organizing in New York City; I.Ness ? Transnational Memories and Identity; T.Ufomata ? Arrested Nationalism, Imposed Transnationalism and the African Literature Classroom: One Nigerian Writer's Learning Curve; P.Adesanmi

'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, Unilã