Colonialism and Contemporary African Migration: A Phenomenological Approach

Scholars of international migration have paid scant attention to the phenomenon of bifurcated social identity of African migrants and their efforts to reinvent or re- and deconstruct a certain image of self in their everyday life. This article aims to offer a more nuanced approach to studying the phenomenon of Africans’ involvement in voluntary migration to the West. Drawing on Goffman’s idea of “dramaturgy,” the article enunciates ways that African immigrants and migrants manage their impression and represent themselves to their peers and social groups in home societies. Using selected cases of African immigrants and migrants in the West, the article enunciates, first, how African migrants (re) present their myriad of experiences to their peers and social groups in home societies as well as the effect of those representations on prospective migrants and, second, why African migrants construe themselves in a particular way to their peers and social groups in home societies. A speculative application of phenomenology to existing qualitative data on African immigration and migration is offered to explicate the lifeworld of African migrants in their oscillation between ancestral and current societies and their seemingly insatiable desire for Euro-American countries.