Invisibility in African Displacements: From Marginalization to Strategies of Avoidance: From Structural Marginalization to Strategies of Avoidance (Africa Now)

by Simon Turner (Editor), Jesper Bjarnesen (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2020

  $46.56

  African migrants have become increasingly demonised in public debate and political rhetoric over the past decade. There is much speculation about the incentives and trajectories of Africans on the move, and often these speculations are implicitly or overtly geared towards discouraging and policing their movements. But what is rarely understood or scrutinised are the intricate ways in which African migrants are marginalised and excluded from public discourse; not only in Europe but in migrant-receiving contexts across the globe.

  Bjarnesen and Turner offer a series of case studies that explore these dynamics of structural invisibilisation. What tends to be either ignored or demonised in public debates on African migration are the deliberate strategies of avoidance or assimilation that migrants make use of to gain access to the destinations or opportunities they seek; or to remain below the radar of restrictive governance regimes. Such strategic invisibilisations feature prominently across the empirical cases in this collection and offer insights into the determination of people under conditions of extreme precarity and duress.

  This books offers fine-grained analysis of the ways in which African migrants negotiate structural and strategic invisibilities, adding innovative approaches to our understanding of migrant vulnerabilities and resilience.