Migrants and Strangers in an African City Exile, Dignity, Belonging [Paperback]

In cities throughout Africa, local inhabitants live alongside large populations of strangers. Bruce Whitehouse explores the condition of strangerhood for residents who have come from the West African Sahel to settle in Brazzaville, Congo. Whitehouse considers how these migrants live simultaneously inside and outside of Congolese society as merchants, as Muslims in a predominantly non-Muslim society, and as parents seeking to instill in their children the customs of their communities of origin. Migrants and Strangers in an African City challenges Pan-Africanist ideas of transnationalism and diaspora in todays globalized world.

[A] very readable and accessible ethnography . . . .54.2 2013Migrants and Strangers in an African City is very well written and, simultaneously, it is engaging in important scholarly debate while remaining accessible. To a large extent, the book benefits immensely from the author's demonstrated deep ethnographic knowledge of both the home and host countries.

Bruce Whitehouse is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Lehigh University.

Whitehouses ethnography is an often surprising and carefully argued book.Even though the book does not conclusively resolve the 'stranger-ness' of West African migrants in Brazzaville, it uncovers fascinating aspects of migrant social life that often remain outside the limelight of academic attention. . . . [It is] an interesting read for students of African Studies as well as those interested in broader socio-economic transformations on the African continent.A worthy contribution to the growing fields of immigration studies, transnationalism, and globalization and a very readable analysis of the dynamics of contemporary life in an African city.Bruce Whitehouse has produced an important volume that examines the settlement of West African migrants in Brazzaville and sets out to explain why their integration into Congolese society has been so limited.[A]n in-depth study that provokes more questions al`