The Migration Experience in Africa

THIS BOOK BRINGS together a wide range of work from different authors concerned with the phenomenon of migration in Africa. It explores a range of conceptual and theoretical themes and includes studies reflecting the wide range of issues linked to migration in Africa and its many different forms. The chapters are divided into four main groups, each dealing with a general theme. The first deals with conceptual and methodological questions on how migration is studied and understood, including the need to recognize the role of agency, and migrants as decisionmakers. The second group presents a broad overview of current work in the region, and is made up of an overview of migration in Africa, a regional overview of South Africa and an examination of the links between migration and economic and environmental change in East Africa. The third group examines the wide range of migrational experiences and has chapters dealing with the link between migration and life-cycles, agricultural cycles, the issue of involuntary migration, a case study of Ethiopia examining the role of the state in migration, and a case study of Tanzania looking at the relationship between conflicts, social differentiation, and ruralurban migration. The fourth group is made up of five chapters which examine migration from the perspective of gender differences. The first is an overview of gender and migration in sub-Saharan Africa, and the four subsequent chapters are specific case studies of gender and migration in Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Botswana. This volume sets about bringing together articles which, whilst diverse in their stances and subject matter, are unified in their rejection of simple models which focus on one set of variables. They all use a more open approach which recognizes the complexity of the factors affecting migration in Africa and incorporates issues such as culture, gender and the environment into their analysis