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- Convenors:
-
Dmitry Bondarenko
David O'Kane (Nelson Mandela University)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- SO-D220
- Sessions:
- Friday 17 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Stockholm
Short Abstract:
In choosing to stay, move, or settle, within Africa or beyond, Africa's people reshape their continent and its future. We invite papers that will deal with all aspects of these experiences of migration and the choices it entails.
Long Abstract:
Human mobility is a twenty-first century universal, but in the case of Africa and its Diaspora it takes particular and peculiar forms, forms shaped by the continent's past history and present reality. In choosing to stay, move, or settle, within Africa or beyond, Africa's people reshape the world around them, and set their continent on the path to a future that remains unclear. To clarify that future, and to understand better the continent's present reality, the EASA Africanists' Network invites papers that will deal with all aspects of mobility, migration and sedentarism in Africa. Papers are welcome from all subdisciplines and all areas of the continent. The convenors are particularly interested in papers dealing with:
· The African refugee crisis as it takes place both within and without Africa.
· How African migration patterns bring the continent into conjunction - and confrontation - with the outside world.
· Patterns of African migration and their relationship to class - whether by Africa's burgeoning Middle Classes, within their home countries, the continent as a whole, and into the African Diaspora, or by the continent's working classes.
· Religious pilgrimage is also a long-standing and contemporary part of Africa's migration experience, as is migration for educational opportunities; again, we welcome any papers dealing with aspects of these and related phenomena.
And we also invite papers on the themes of staying, moving or settling which are not covered above!
The convenors may be reached via the contact details below.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 17 August, 2018, -Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the experiences of migrant women from Lesotho that work as domestic workers in South Africa. Using feminist tools of analysis, It explores how these migrant women negotiate and construct the meaning of motherhood, how they deal with transnational motherhood.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is based on a study that explores the experiences of ten migrant women who have migrated from Lesotho to work as domestic workers in South Africa. The enquiry is centred on their experiences as mothers who spend extended periods of time away from their children and in turn have to take care of their employer's children in South Africa. The study is motivated by the increased migration of women in the southern African region, as is the trend global, and the social impact that the migration of women has on sending communities and families. The study aims to look at the construction of motherhood and childcare in an era of increased female migration. In addition, it aims to highlight the importance of childcare for both migrant sending and receiving countries, to contribute to scholarly work on migration and gender studies and to advocate for policies that improve the conditions of migrant domestic works in particular and domestic workers in general.
Paper short abstract:
Distinctive artistic styles are produced through people's movements across cultural boundaries. Using two forms of personal adornment from West Africa, I explore the roles of visual culture in histories of migration, serving as a source of inspiration for movement and as a marker of experience.
Paper long abstract:
This paper applies an art historical lens to the cultural impact of migration, addressing the distinctive artistic expressions that are produced through people's movements across cultural boundaries for work, trade, and adventure. I focus on a single West African region that has for centuries been the origin point for migrants: the Inland Niger Delta region of Mali. From this savannah and semi-desert landscape, migrants have long set out across the Sahara, to coastal cities in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, and beyond. Using two forms of personal adornment as case studies, one a form of embroidery and the other a type of jewelry, I explore the roles of visual culture in histories of migration, serving as a source of inspiration for movement and as a marker of experience. The embroidery, a style called "Ghana Boy," offers a particularly vivid illustration of the aspirations and the experiences of migrants; my research is the first to thoroughly explore this artistic innovation. In addition, this paper will address contemporary migration through the work of a Malian artist who has created large, textile-based assemblages that assess the toll of forced movements, driven by warfare or economic exigency.
In each of these cases, visual expressions of migration illuminate Mali's multiple cultures of travel, past and present. We can read into these textiles, ornaments, and works of studio art elements of the motivations that drive migrants, the rewards and the sacrifices they make, as well as the social meanings that accrue to those who leave.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines ethnic identity reconfigurations in new migration contexts. From a multisited ethnography, we will approach the case of the Mbororo Fulani, comparing their identity discourses in Cameroon and Europe.
Paper long abstract:
In Cameroon, Mbororo herders are identified, along with other groups, as an indigenous people. Since the Mbororo are part of the great Fulani ethnic group, living throughout the Sudano-Sahelian zone, it is interesting to observe the dynamics that have shaped them as a distinctive ethnic group, exclusively present in Cameroon, Central African Republic and Chad. As a result of an stigmatizing category, and in a context of migration from the countryside to the city, the ethnonym Mbororo has become a referent of an empowered community. From a global perspective, it can be understood as dynamic of fission since in other countries, Fulani people are presented in a unitary way.
Having said that, in the framework of an ongoing research this paper aims to expose the reconfiguration of cultural and ethnic borders as strategies of identity reaffirmation related to migratory processes. The incipient transnational migration in Europe of an Mbororo elites calls into question the effectiveness of certain categories outside the country of origin. So, through the analysis of the social networks between different diasporic points in Europe, we can reflect on how identity bonds are constructed, which links are maintained with the Mbororo community in Cameroon, as well as the relationship with the Fulani transnational community, either through social media or in the countries of arrival. The present proposal, therefore, is the result of a multisited ethnographic research conducted between Cameroon and Europe, providing a perspective that invites to emphasise how the processes of ethnicity construction are relational and contextual.
Paper short abstract:
We distinguish between two social groups of African migrants: "affluent" and "struggling". Their life strategies differ sharply: the affluent opt for maximum integration in the mainstream socio-cultural milieu; the struggling limit themselves to mere adaptation by cooperating mainly with one other.
Paper long abstract:
The changes since the breakup of the USSR have impacted African migrants' social composition, as well as their life strategies in the capital city of Moscow. In this paper, we distinguish between two social groups of African migrants: "affluent" and "struggling". Almost all affluent migrants are those who have come to study at Soviet or Russian universities, have lived in Russia for at least twenty years or thereabouts, have obtained Russian citizenship (mainly through marriage), speak fluent Russian, know the Russian lifestyle very well, enjoy support from Russian family members and respect in their home countries, have native Russians as close friends, are happy to see their children being very well integrated into city life, and are always welcome in their motherlands' embassies. The struggling Africans are mainly present-day economic migrants and refugees, whose coming to the country became possible only in the post-Soviet time, with usually insufficient education background and poor Russian language skills, poor knowledge of Russian lifestyle, few, if any, Russian friends, and very limited financial possibilities with little hope for any kind of support by the home country's official representatives. The Africans from the two social groups usually use two radically different life strategies to embroider themselves into the fabric of Russian society: while the affluent opt for maximum inclusion in the mainstream socio-cultural milieu, the struggling cooperate mainly with one other. Thus, while one group seeks integration into the Russian society, the other limits itself to mere adaptation to life in Moscow.
Paper short abstract:
A great number of African students came to India recently to study in state and private universities. The paper will critically question the experience of the African students in India who are living in a changing but complex society marked by religious, racial, cultural and linguistic diversity.
Paper long abstract:
Nowadays India is the top non-African country of the Global South destination among African students according to the Indian Higher Education Survey. The data from the Ministry of Human Resource Development indicate Sudan and Nigeria as fourth and fifth on the list of top 10 countries from where students came to study in India, the maximum number of students enrolled in Ph.D. studies are from Ethiopia. Most of African students are enrolled in new, privately run universities that conduct aggressive recruitment drives in various African countries.
Historically, India-Africa relations were built on opposition of colonialism and racial discrimination. The fact that India was dedicated to Africa's struggle against colonial rule, apartheid, and injustice is not well know among Indians, but Africans know it.
Image of India among African nationals is mainly positive thanks to Indian films which are very popular in Africa. When African nationals come to India they collide with an unexpected realities full of 'coloring' prejudices and race stereotypes in Indian host society.
The paper will critically question the experience of the African students in India who are living in a changing but complex society marked by religious, racial, cultural and linguistic diversity. The research in progress is based on conversations and interviews with members of African Association of Students in India (AASI), as well as analyses of social media and media coverage of such cases. Additionally the representatives of the Indian host community were interviewed.