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. "Population movements have been one of the most important social processes unfolding on the African continent over the past century."―Michael Lambert, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill "[Explores] new terrain and [gives] nuance to our understanding of African migrations and the African Diaspora.56.1 March 2015"― Journal of African History "[T]he theoretical insights coupled with a strong selection of empirical case studies make overall for an informative and enjoyable read."― African Affairs "The 14 engaging case studies assembled here add to understanding the social processes of voluntary and forced displacement within the continent and across the seas. . . . Recommended."― Choice Abdoulaye Kane is Associate Professor of Anthropology and African studies at the University of Florida. He is editor (with Hansjörg Dilger and Stacey A. Langwick) of Medicine, Mobility, and Power in Global Africa (IUP, 2011). Todd H. Leedy is Associate Director and Senior Lecturer in the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. African Migrations Patterns and Perspectives By Abdoulaye Kane, Todd H. Leedy Indiana University Press Copyright © 2013 Indiana University Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-253-00576-2 Contents Acknowledgments, Introduction: African Patterns of Migration in a Global Era: New Perspectives Abdoulaye Kane and Todd H. Leedy, Part 1. Psychological, Sociocultural, and Political Dimensions of African Migration, 1. Overcoming the Economistic Fallacy: Social Determinants of Voluntary Migration from the Sahel to the Congo Basin Bruce Whitehouse, 2. Migration as Coping with Risk and State Barriers: Malian Migrants' Conception of Being Far from Home Isaie Dougnon, 3. Navigating Diaspora: The Precarious Depths of the Italian Immigration Crisis Donald Carter, 4. Historic Changes Underway in African Migration Policies: From Muddling Through to Organized Brain Circulation Rubin Patterson, Part 2. Translocal and Transnational Connections: Between Belonging and Exclusion, 5. Belonging amidst Shifting Sands: Insertion, Self-Exclusion, and the Remaking of African Urbanism Loren B. Landau, 6. Securing Wealth, Ordering Social Relations: Kinship, Morality, and the Configuration of Subjectivity and Belonging across the Rural-Urban Divide Hansjörg Dilger, 7. Voluntary and Involuntary Homebodies: Adaptations and Lived Experiences of Hausa "Left Behind" in Niamey, Niger Scott M. Youngstedt, 8. Strangers Are Like the Mist: Language in the Push and Pull of the African Diaspora Paul Stoller, 9. Toward a Christian Disneyland? Negotiating Space and Identity in the New African Religious Diaspora Afe Adogame, 10. International Aid to Refugees in Kenya: The Neglected Role of the Somali Diaspora Cindy Horst, Part 3. Feminization of Migration and the Appearance of Diasporic Identities, 11. The Feminization of Asylum Migration from Africa: Problems and Perspectives Jane Freedman, 12. Migration as a Factor of Cultural Change Abroad and at Home: Senegalese Female Hair Braiders in the United States Cheikh Anta Babou, 13. What the General of Amadou Bamba Saw in New York City: Gendered Displays of Devotion among Migrants of the Senegalese Murid Tariqa Beth A. Buggenhagen, 14. Toward Understanding a Culture of Migration among "Elite" African Youth: Educational Capital and the Future of the Igbo Diaspora Rachel R. Reynolds, Contributors, Index, CHAPTER 1 OVERCOMING THE ECONOMISTIC FALLACY SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF VOLUNTARY MIGRATION FROM THE SAHEL TO THE CONGO BASIN BRUCE WHITEHOUSE THE "WORLD'S WORST CITY" Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, is of modest size by world standards, with a population currently estimated at somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 million. It is also in many respects typical of cities throughout Africa and the global South, characterized by rapid population growth, high unemployment, and shrinking public resources. While this erstwhile somnolent colonial outpost was once (briefly) renowned as the capital of Free France during the Second World War, during the 1990s Brazzaville became remarkable mainly as the scene of recurring violence by ethno-political factions vying for control of the Congolese state and its substantial oil revenue