Paper short abstract:

This article aims to discuss African migration knowledge production in the postcolonial studies, exploring research questions, knowledge claims, strategies of inquiry and methods.

Paper long abstract:

Spatial movement has been a relevant feature in social organization in Africa since time immemorial. In precolonial times Africans moved for several reasons, such as in search of natural resources (e.g. trade, pasture, and agriculture land) and/or for sociocultural events (e.g. pilgrimage). Colonial powers took measures to prevent what they saw as "disruptive, and exceptional" movements, whereas at the same time they created new forms of spatial movement for meeting the colonial system demands (i.e. military, natural resources, and labor).

Despite regular or frequent, the spatial movements has only integrated the Africanist research agenda in the fifties. Rhodes Livingstone Institute and Manchester School-inspired field sciences, Political Science and the recently created History of Africa contributed a great deal to include different forms of spatial movement into the research agenda whether through the rural-urban continuum (i.e. Social Anthropology and Sociology), or labor under a global or world-system perspective.

African migration-related knowledge production has only occurred under the aegis of the Postcolonial studies, mostly in the last decades and in the context of a governmental policy-oriented agenda.

This article aims to discuss African migration knowledge production in the postcolonial studies, exploring research questions, knowledge claims, strategies of inquiry and methods.