AFRICAN STUDIES
HISTORY, POLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND CULTURE
MOLEFI ASANTE, General Editor
AFRICAN CULTURAL VALUES
Igbo Political Leadership in Colonial Nigeria, 19001966
Raphael Chijioke Njoku
A ROADMAP FOR UNDERSTANDING AFRICAN POLITICS
Leadership and Political Integration in Nigeria
Victor Oguejiofor Okafor
DOING JUSTICE WITHOUT THE STATE
The Afikpo (Ehugbo) Nigeria Model
O. Oko Elechi
STUDENT POWER IN AFRICAS HIGHER EDUCATION
A Case of Makerere University
Frederick Kamuhanda Byaruhanga
THE NGO FACTOR IN AFRICA
The Case of Arrested Development in Kenya
Maurice Nyamanga Amutabi
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND DEMOCRACY IN AFRICA
The Impact of Womens Struggle for Equal Rights in Botswana
Agnes Ngoma Leslie
NEFER
The Aesthetic Ideal in Classical Egypt
Willie Cannon-Brown
THE EXPERIENCE OF ECONOMIC REDISTRIBUTION
The Growth, Employment and Redistribution Strategy in South Africa
Clarence Tshitereke
THE ROLE OF THE PRESS AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN DEMOCRATIZATION
The Nigerian Story
Aje-Ori Agbese
THE POLITICS OF ETHNIC NATIONALISM
Afrikaner Unity, the National Party, and the Radical Right in Stellenbosch, 19341948
Joanne L. Duffy
MOBUTUS TOTALITARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM
An Afrocentric Analysis
Peta Ikambana
INDIGENOUS MEDICINE AND KNOWLEDGE IN AFRICAN SOCIETY
Kwasi Konadu
AFRICA IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Toward a New Future
Edited by Ama Mazama
MISSIONS, STATES, AND EUROPEAN EXPANSION IN AFRICA
Edited by Chima J. Korieh and Raphael
Chijioke Njoku
THE HUMAN COST OF AFRICAN MIGRATIONS
Edited by Toyin Falola and Niyi Afolabi
TRANS-ATLANTIC MIGRATION
The Paradoxes of Exile
Edited by Toyin Falola and Niyi Afolabi
TRANS-ATLANTIC MIGRATION
The Paradoxes of Exile
Edited by
Toyin Falola and Niyi Afolabi
Routledge
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International Standard Book Number-13:978-0-415-96091-5 (Hardcover)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Trans-Atlantic migration : the paradoxes of exile / edited by Toyin Falola and Niyi Afolabi.
p. cm. -- (African studies)
Drawn from an international conference on movements, migrations, and displacements, and held at the University of Texas-Austin in March 2006.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-96091-5
1. Africans--Foreign countries--Congresses. 2. Africans--Migrations--Congresses. 3. Migration, Internal--Africa--Congresses. 4. Immigrants--Africa--Congresses. 5. African diaspora--Congresses. 6. Africa--Emigration and immigration--Congresses.
I. Falola, Toyin. II. Afolabi, Niyi.
DT16.5.T73 2007
304.8096--dc22 2007015348
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ISBN 0-203-93383-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978-0-203-93383-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978-1-135-90077-9 ePub ISBN
To Omi Osun (Joni Jones) for her Yoruba Spirituality
&
To the memory of millionsnameless and forgottenwho perished
in the trans-Atlantic journeys
Preface
Trans-Atlantic Migration: The Paradoxes of Exile argues that new cadres of African immigrants are finding themselves in the New Worldmostly well educated, high-income earning professionals, and belonging to the category termed African brain drain, they constitute the antinomy of those Africans who were forcibly removed from Africa during slavery. Yet, along with this sense of freedom and voluntary migration comes a paradoxthat of living in two worlds and negotiating the pleasures and agonies that come with living in exile. For the new African immigrant, the primary factor motivating migration is the desire for a better lifewhether fleeing political persecution, economic crisis, refugee crisis, or a combination thereof. The overall consequences include displacement, alienation, and the not so enchanting realities of exile. In its encompassing structure and multivalent perspectives,