The Shock of the New: On Migrant Imaginaries and Critical Transitions

Abstract This essay is based on recent fieldwork (2005–2006) among Sierra Leonean migrants, both legal and illegal, living in southeast London. Its focus is the lifeworld of a young Sierra Leonean man struggling to find his feet in a city that is both perplexing and perilous. It attempts to show how his struggle for legitimacy, security, income, and an ongoing sense ofconnectedness with his homeland is played out not only in his everyday survival strategies but in his active imagination.