Argonauts of West Africa : unauthorized migration and kinship dynamics in a changing Europe / Apostolos Andrikopoulos.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Andrikopoulos, Apostolos, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Africans--Kinship--Netherlands--Amsterdam.

Africans.

Africans--Netherlands--Amsterdam--Social conditions.

Africans--Legal status, laws, etc--Netherlands--Amsterdam.

Noncitizens--Netherlands--Amsterdam--Social conditions.

Noncitizens.

Illegal immigration--Netherlands.

Illegal immigration.

Africans--Legal status, laws, etc.

Africans--Social conditions.

Noncitizens--Social conditions.

Netherlands.

Netherlands--Amsterdam.

Physical Description:

201 pages : illustrations (black and white), map ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago, IL : The University of Chicago Press, 2023.

Summary:

"Argonauts of West Africa examines the paradoxes of kinship in the lives of unauthorized African migrants as they struggle for mobility, employment, and citizenship in Europe. In a rapidly changing and highly precarious context, migrants turn to kinship in search of security, stability, and predictability. Through the exchange of identity documents, assistance in obtaining such documentation, marriage, or cohabitation, new kinship dynamics are continually made and remade to navigate the shifting demands of European states. These new kinship relations, however, often prove unreliable, taking on new, unexpected dynamics in the face of codependency; they become more difficult to control than those who entered into such relations could have imagined. Through unusually close ethnographic work in West African migrant communities in Amsterdam, Apostolos Andrikopoulos reveals unseen dynamics of "siblinghood" through shared papers, the tensions of race and gender that develop in mutually beneficial marriages, and the vast, informal networks of people, information, and documentation on which migrants rely. Throughout, Andrikopoulos demonstrates how inequality, exclusionary practices, and the changing policies of an often-violent state demand new forms of kinship to successfully navigate complex migration routes"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Navigating kinship

Unauthorized identity craft

"Working with my sister's papers"

Dying relations?

Marriage, love, and inequality

Conclusion: unpredictable dynamics of kinship.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226822600

0226822605

9780226822624

0226822621

OCLC:

1346125643