African Migration, Human Rights and Literature

African Migration, Human Rights and Literature PDF Author: Fareda Banda
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509938362
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book

Book Description
This innovative book looks at the topic of migration through the prism of law and literature. The author uses a rich mix of novels, short stories, literary realism, human rights and comparative literature to explore the experiences of African migrants and asylum seekers. The book is divided into two. Part one is conceptual and focuses on art activism and the myriad ways in which people have sought to 'write justice.' Using Mazrui's diasporas of slavery and colonialism, it then considers histories of migration across the centuries before honing in on the recent anti-migration policies of western states. Achiume is used to show how these histories of imposition and exploitation create a bond which bestows on Africans a “status as co-sovereigns of the First World through citizenship.” The many fictional examples of the schemes used to gain entry are set against the formal legal processes. Attention is paid to life post-arrival which for asylum seekers may include periods in detention. The impact of the increased hostility of receiving states is examined in light of their human rights obligations. Consideration is paid to how Africans navigate their post-migration lives which includes reconciling themselves to status fracture-taking on jobs for which they are over-qualified, while simultaneously dealing with the resentment borne of status threat on the part of the citizenry. Part two moves from the general to consider the intersections of gender and status focusing on women, LGBTI individuals and children. Focusing on their human rights and the fictional literature, chapter four looks at women who have been trafficked as well as domestic workers and hotel maids while chapter five is on LGBTI people whose legal and literary stories are only now being told. The final substantive chapter considers the experiences of children who may arrive as unaccompanied minors. Using a mixture of poetry and first person accounts, the chapter examines the post-arrival lives of children, some of whom may be citizens but who are continually made to feel like outsiders. The conclusion follows, starting with two stories about walls by Hadero and Lanchester which are used to illustrate the themes discussed in the book. Few African lawyers write about literature and few books and articles in Western law and literature look at books by or about Africans, so a book that engages with both is long overdue. This book provides fascinating reading for academics, students of law, literature, gender and migration studies, and indeed the general public.

African Migration, Human Rights and Literature

African Migration, Human Rights and Literature PDF Author: Fareda Banda
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509938362
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book

Book Description
This innovative book looks at the topic of migration through the prism of law and literature. The author uses a rich mix of novels, short stories, literary realism, human rights and comparative literature to explore the experiences of African migrants and asylum seekers. The book is divided into two. Part one is conceptual and focuses on art activism and the myriad ways in which people have sought to 'write justice.' Using Mazrui's diasporas of slavery and colonialism, it then considers histories of migration across the centuries before honing in on the recent anti-migration policies of western states. Achiume is used to show how these histories of imposition and exploitation create a bond which bestows on Africans a “status as co-sovereigns of the First World through citizenship.” The many fictional examples of the schemes used to gain entry are set against the formal legal processes. Attention is paid to life post-arrival which for asylum seekers may include periods in detention. The impact of the increased hostility of receiving states is examined in light of their human rights obligations. Consideration is paid to how Africans navigate their post-migration lives which includes reconciling themselves to status fracture-taking on jobs for which they are over-qualified, while simultaneously dealing with the resentment borne of status threat on the part of the citizenry. Part two moves from the general to consider the intersections of gender and status focusing on women, LGBTI individuals and children. Focusing on their human rights and the fictional literature, chapter four looks at women who have been trafficked as well as domestic workers and hotel maids while chapter five is on LGBTI people whose legal and literary stories are only now being told. The final substantive chapter considers the experiences of children who may arrive as unaccompanied minors. Using a mixture of poetry and first person accounts, the chapter examines the post-arrival lives of children, some of whom may be citizens but who are continually made to feel like outsiders. The conclusion follows, starting with two stories about walls by Hadero and Lanchester which are used to illustrate the themes discussed in the book. Few African lawyers write about literature and few books and articles in Western law and literature look at books by or about Africans, so a book that engages with both is long overdue. This book provides fascinating reading for academics, students of law, literature, gender and migration studies, and indeed the general public.

African Migrants and the Refugee Crisis

African Migrants and the Refugee Crisis PDF Author: Olayiwola Abegunrin
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030566420
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book

Book Description
This book discusses African migration and the refugee crisis. Economic, political and social tension in the Middle East and in many parts of the Global South has induced historic mass migration across national and international borders. The situation is especially dire in Africa, where a sizable number of Africans have chosen or have been forced to leave their countries of origin for Europe and North America. Written by an international team of scholars, this edited book traces the refugee crisis around the world, telling the necessary story of forced migration, intentional exclusion, and human insecurity from an Afrocentric lens. The volume is divided into three sections. Section I places African migration within the broader contexts of international history, law, economics, and policy. Section II discusses cases of African migration to Europe, Latin America, and the Mediterranean. Section III considers negative consequences of mass African migration, including the restriction and criminalization of migration, post-traumatic stress disorder, and gender-based violence. A compelling account of risk, resilience, and global power dynamics, this volume will be useful to students and researchers interested in African studies, migration, peace and conflict studies, and policy as well as professionals, practitioners, NGOs, IGOs, governmental and humanitarian organizations.

African Migration, Global Inequalities, and Human Rights

African Migration, Global Inequalities, and Human Rights PDF Author: William Minter
Publisher: Nordic Africa Institute
ISBN: 9789171066923
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 95

Get Book

Book Description
Migration from and within Africa, just like migration elsewhere in the world, often generates anti-immigrant sentiment and ignites heated public debate about the migration policies of the destination countries. These countries include South Africa as well as others outside the continent. The countries of origin are also keen to minimize losses through "brain drain" and to capture resources such as remittances. Increasingly, international organizations and human rights advocates have stressed the need to protect the interests of migrants themselves. However, while the UNDP's 2009 Human Development Report talks of "win-win-win" solutions, in practice it is the perceived interests of destination countries that enjoy the greatest attention, while the rights of migrants themselves are afforded the least. Yet migration is not just an issue in itself: it also points to structural inequalities between countries and regions. Managing migration and protecting migrants is too limited an agenda. Activists and policymakers must also address these inequalities directly to ensure that people can pursue their fundamental human rights whether they move or stay. It is not enough to measure development only in terms of progress at the national level: development must also be measured in terms of reductions in the gross levels of inequality that now determine differential rights on the basis of accident of birth.

African Migrations

African Migrations PDF Author: Abdoulaye Kane
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253003083
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Get Book

Book Description
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.

Narrating Human Rights in Africa

Narrating Human Rights in Africa PDF Author: Eleni Coundouriotis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042951462X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book

Book Description
Narrating Human Rights in Africa claims human rights from the perspective of artists from the African continent and situates the key theoretical concepts in African perspectives, undercutting the stereotypes of victimhood and voicelessness. Instead of positioning literary texts as illustrative of points already theorized elsewhere, the author foregrounds the literature itself to show the concepts it offers, the ideas and responses stemming from complex historical circumstances in Africa and expressed by African writers. The book focuses on how narrative creates new categories of thought challenging human rights dogma, whereas the sum of the literary voices evoked also stands by the values of social justice and protection of human rights. The chapters take up key challenges to the narration of human rights in which the contribution of African writers is particularly important. This includes human dignity in the resistance to apartheid, the figure of the child soldier, how humanitarianism’s images affect representational strategies of contemporary African writers, the challenge of testifying about rape in war, how to evoke the disappeared body of the torture victim, the centrality of flight in the refugee and migrant experiences, and finally the long shadow of the "heart of darkness" motif. Offering a sustained examination of the narrative treatment of key human rights concerns as expressed by African writers, this book will be of interest to scholars of African literature, postcolonial studies, African studies, and human rights.

African Migration Narratives

African Migration Narratives PDF Author: Cajetan Iheka
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1648250068
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book

Book Description
Examines the representations of migration in African literature, film, and other visual media, with an eye to the stylistic features of these works as well as their contributions to debates on migration

Contemporary African Literature

Contemporary African Literature PDF Author: Tanure Ojaide
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781611630299
Category : African literature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Contemporary African Literature: New Approaches comprises essays that go beyond conventional literary studies to open new vistas for critical excursion. It deals not only with purely literary issues of canonization, language, aesthetics, and scholar-poet traditions that have barely been addressed directly in recent studies but also with diverse interdisciplinary topics in literature as of migration, globalization, environmental and human rights, and gender. Written from his scholar-poet position, Tanure Ojaide's essays address pertinent issues that need to be either examined or reexamined in the current condition of Africa in the age of globalization and democratization. The collection of essays also brings literature to bear on issues that have become new concerns for writers and the general African populace. It widens the scope of the African experience in literature as never before. This book is part of the African World Series, edited by Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin. "This book is a worthy read, and its panoramic view will leave any reader familiar with African literature, especially in the areas of poetry and fiction, with ample cause to appreciate Tanure Ojaide's literary foresight and the merits of his scholarship." -- World Literature Today

The Human Cost of African Migrations

The Human Cost of African Migrations PDF Author: Toyin Falola
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135904413
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Get Book

Book Description
In an era of globalization, population growth, and displacements, migration is now a fact of life in a constantly shifting economic and political world order. This book contributes to the discourse on the beneficiaries, benefactors, and the casualties of African displacement. While the few existing studies have emphasized economic motivation as the primary factor triggering African migration, this volume treats a range of issues: economic, socio-political, pedagogical, developmental, and cultural. Organized with a multidisciplinary thrust in mind, this book argues that any discussion of African migration, whether internal or external, must be conceived as only one aspect of a more complex, organic, and global patterning of "flux and reflux" necessitated by constantly shifting dynamics of world socio-economic, cultural, and political order.

Long Journeys. African Migrants on the Road

Long Journeys. African Migrants on the Road PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004250395
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Trapped inside lorries or huddled aboard unseaworthy boats, irregular African migrants make for troubling headlines in western media, fueling fever pitch fears of an impending "African exodus" to Europe. Despite the increasing, albeit sensational, attention irregular migration attracts on both sides of the Mediterranean, little is known about what shapes and influences the lives of these Africans before, during, and after their “migratory projects.” By privileging migrants' narratives and drawing on evidence-based field research from different disciplinary backgrounds, the volume demystifies and dislodges many common assumptions about the human ecology of irregular African migration to Europe, arguably one of the most widely debated, yet least understood, phenomenon of our time.

African Diaspora Identities

African Diaspora Identities PDF Author: John W. Arthur
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739146394
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book

Book Description
African Diaspora Identities provides insights into the complex transnational processes involved in shaping the migratory identities of African immigrants. It seeks to understand the durability of these African transnational migrant identities and their impact on inter-minority group relationships. John A. Arthur demonstrates that the identities African immigrants construct often transcends country-specific cultures and normative belief systems. He illuminates the fact that these transnational migrant identities are an amalgamation of multiple identities formed in varied social transnational settings. The United States has become a site for the cultural formations, manifestations, and contestations of the newer identities that these immigrants seek to depict in cross-cultural and global settings. Relying mostly on their strong human capital resources (education and family), Africans are devising creative, encompassing, and robust ways to position and reposition their new identities. In combining their African cultural forms and identities with new roles, norms, and beliefs that they imbibe in the United States and everywhere else they have settled, Africans are redefining what it means to be black in a race-, ethnicity-, and color-conscious American society.