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- Convenors:
-
Hannah Hoechner
(University of East Anglia)
Joan van Geel (Maastricht University)
Emma Abotsi (Goldsmiths, University of London)
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- Stream:
- Sociology
- Location:
- Chrystal McMillan, Seminar Room 6
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 12 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Transnational families perceive former and/or parental countries of origin as educationally resourceful contexts. Adopting a youth-centric perspective, this panel investigates young Africans' North-South 'return' mobility for the purpose of education.
Long Abstract:
Transnational African families perceive former and/or parental countries of origin as educationally resourceful contexts. However, the majority of debates and literature has concentrated on South-North mobilities and the impact of migration on education after migrant youth has settled in the Global North. Yet, the empirical reality of African migrant youth is often characterised by multiple mobilities back-and-forth between their host-and-origin country. Transnational African families 'send back' their children in order to (re-)educate them, to accumulate transnational capital, to inculcate religious sensibilities, to discipline them, or take them on holidays 'back home' during which they become acquainted with historical narratives and knowledge about their 'roots'. Migrant youth also independently undertake these mobilities in the context of their education. We know little about the role of these mobilities in the educational projects of migrant youth.
These mobilities are therefore also absent in our conventional conceptualisations and theorisations of migrant youth's education. This is remarkable since mobility has received significant academic attention and is increasingly framed as an enriching element in the educational projects of Global Northern students. How do these mobility trajectories of migrant youth broaden our understanding of an 'enriching educational experience' and the role of education in the reproduction of particular national citizens? And how do migrant youth themselves perceive and experience this mobility 'back home'? This panel investigates African migrant youth's North-South 'return' mobility for the purpose of education. It explores youth's informal and formal education as well as their mobilities of various duration from a youth-centric perspective.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates how the mobility trajectories of young Ghanaians, that include engagements in mobilities 'back home', shape their educational experiences. The analyses explores the young Ghanaians' perspectives on what they perceive to gain educationally during these journeys.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on 20 months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork with 30 young Ghanaians between the age of 16 and 25, this paper investigates how mobility trajectories that include Global North-South mobilities shape young Ghanaians' educational experiences. This paper extends two recent developments in the literature. Youth who are going back to Africa remain an understudied group of today's global mobile population due to a strong focus on Global South-North migration flows. Some notable exceptions, mainly ethnographic studies, focus on children who are being returned to their parents' countries of origin, mainly for educational purposes (e.g. Kea and Maier 2017; Whitehouse 2009). It remains unclear what the personal and societal (dis)advantages of reversed mobility patterns towards Africa are, or which exact mechanisms are instigated during return mobilities that form the educational experiences of young people who engage in multiple mobilities back-and-forth. Through the investigation of young Ghanaians' 'mobility trajectories' that include return mobilities, this paper examines youth's actual physical mobility and lived experiences unfolding during the journeys 'back home'.
Paper short abstract:
Remittances come in different forms. The significant role of transferred political and social ideas, skills, and knowledge to Africa's development is critical. This chapter examines the reasons, knowledge, ideas and values of returnees to Ghana and how they mobilise themselves for development.
Paper long abstract:
Remittances come in different forms, they may be financial, goods, social and political ideas. However, the increasing interest of African governments and policy makers on financial remittances has created a lacuna in the remittances and development nexus. The significant but invisible role of transferred political and social ideas, skills, and knowledge of skilled migrants to Africa's development is critical. Skilled migrants are returning to their countries of origin with expertise and acquired knowledge which has a ripple effect on development. However, only a handful of programmes which are mostly internationally arranged programmes such as the Diaspora-Carnegie program, the German's return experts and the IOM return programs coordinate such returns. African governments' efforts to harness these opportunities have been inadequate and call for attention. Using Ghana as a case, this chapter examines the reasons, knowledge, and values of skilled return migrants to Ghana and how they mobilise themselves for development of the home country as well as sustain their return. This chapter recommends the recognition and inclusion of how to leverage social and political remittances for Africa's development for the UN Global compact on migration.
Paper short abstract:
Many first and second-generation Nigerian migrants to Britain, who are middle class, are sending their children to be educated in Nigeria. Their transnational practices are central to educational planning, social mobility and the reproduction of middle class subjectivities.
Paper long abstract:
The continued salience of the Africa rising narrative has encouraged the descendants of Nigerian migrants to the West to return to live in Lagos as repatriates. It is within this context that many first and second-generation Nigerian migrants to Britain, who are middle class and aspiring middle class, are sending their children to be educated in Nigeria. Their transnational practices are central to educational planning, mobile livelihoods, social mobility and the (re) production of middle class subjectivities within neo-liberal globalization. Education, as a form of cultural capital, has historically served as a key component of middle-class British and Nigerian subjectivities. I argue that mobility, and the transnational practices that it engenders, lead to accumulation of cultural capital, in the form of education and qualifications, and social capital, in the form of extended friendship and kin networks. Further, it is imperative that they cultivate useful networks in the right milieu; in this sense, boarding schools, as places of privilege and opulence, foster new networks and relations. Finally, analyzing the nature of neoliberal subjectivities, and increasing precarity, is key to understanding some of the attributes - and modes of cultivation - of the middle class.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on research with migrant families in the US and young 'returnees' in Senegal, this paper explores how educational stints in the 'homeland' simultaneously equip young people with resources to deal with the challenges of US life and produce new vulnerabilities.
Paper long abstract:
A growing body of literature explores today how transnational migration from Africa to Western countries affects both family life and childrearing practices. Several authors document parents' decisions to send children 'back' to the homeland, be it to cut costs, to protect children from the perceived harmful influences of Western society, or to inculcate specific forms of cultural and religious 'capital'. While the constraints underpinning parents' decisions to send children 'back' are fairly well documented, much less is known about how such 'returns' - and the 'reverse returns' following them - actually work out and how they are experienced by the young people in question. Drawing on data collected over a total of 14 months both among Senegalese migrant communities in New York and New Jersey, and in Islamic schools receiving migrants' children in Dakar, Senegal, this paper explores how educational stints in the 'homeland', including for religious education, are a 'contradictory resource'. To some extent, they equip young people with cultural and religious resources to deal with the challenges of living in the US as part of a triple minority as blacks, immigrants, and Muslims. At the same time, homeland stays produce a series of new vulnerabilities, as young people struggle to adjust to an unfamiliar language and disciplinary regime when 're-returning' to the US.