Migration and the African Diaspora

Materialities of Governance and Development

Ọláyínká Àkànle
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Hardback
9781837425396
27 November 2026
$110.00
Available to order on 28 October 2026
eBook (PDF)
9781837425389
27 November 2026
$110.00
Available to order on 28 October 2026
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9781837425402
27 November 2026
$110.00
Available to order on 28 October 2026

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  • Description
  • Contents
  • About

African migration and the diaspora have become central to contemporary debates on governance, development, and global inequality. Migration and the African Diaspora: Materialities of Governance and Development offers a critical and empirically grounded exploration of how migration shapes, and is shaped by, institutional frameworks, lived experience, and transnational relations.

Bringing together original research from across Africa and African diasporic contexts, this edited volume examines international migration through interconnected themes of governance, development, remittances, gender, climate change, labour exploitation, and diaspora engagement. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative studies, contributors analyse migration processes and outcomes across diverse empirical settings, including Sub Saharan Africa, Canada, the Middle East, and African transnational family networks. Chapters interrogate issues such as remittance economies and leakage, the climate change–migration nexus, development impacts of mobility, gendered health and labour experiences, modern slavery, and the social obligations facing migrants and their left behind families. The volume also offers a critical assessment of African states’ diaspora engagement policies and continental migration frameworks, questioning assumptions of reciprocity and inclusion in governance narratives.

This collection advances an African centred perspective that foregrounds material realities, power relations, and institutional dynamics. It is insightful reading for scholars and students in migration studies, African studies, development studies, sociology, political science, human geography, and diaspora and transnational studies.

Chapter 1. Answering the Governance and Development Question: Migration, the African Diaspora and Materialities; Ọláyínká Àkànle

  • Section 1. Remittance, Climate Change and Development
  • Chapter 2. Remittance Leakage and the Migration–Gambling Nexus: Rethinking Family Economies in Africa; Rowland Edet and Beulah Suleman
  • Chapter 3. Climate Change-Migration Nexus in Africa: Evidence from Mediation and Moderation Effect Analyses; Joshua Adeyemi Afolabi, Isiaka Akande Raifu, and Damian Chidozie Uzoma-Nwosu
  • Chapter 4. Development Impacts of International Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa; Ọláyínká Àkànle, Tirimisiyu Yemi Olabulo, and Goodluck Uzieyi
  • Section 2. Migration, Gender and the Lived Experiences of African Diaspora
  • Chapter 5. Imagining Canada: Hope, Networks and Imagined Futures among Prospective African Skilled Migrants; Ashika Niraula
  • Chapter 6. Gendered Health Experiences of African Immigrant Women in Canada: The Case of Nigerian Women; Olayinka Damilola Ola-Lawson and Ọláyínká Àkànle
  • Chapter 7. Modern Slavery, Agents’ Mistreatment and International Migration of Kenyans to the Middle East; Rebecca Chepkoech Barno
  • Chapter 8. Black Tax: The Experiences and obligations of African Migrants to their Left-behind Families; Demilade Ifeoluwa Kayode and Dauda A. Busari
  • Section 3. African Diaspora Engagement and Frameworks
  • Chapter 9. The Illusion of Belonging and Reciprocity: Diaspora Engagement Policies of African States as Vehicles for Extractive Relationships; Theophilus Kwabena Abutima, Patrick Yirenkyi Amoah, and Leander Kandilige
  • Chapter 10. Migration, Diaspora and the Existential Condition of African Migrants in the African Union’s Migration Frameworks; Antia Aniekeme and Tunde A. Alabi
  • Chapter 11. Fundamentals for Sustainability of Africa: The Migration, African Diaspora, Governance and Development Calculus; Ọláyínká Àkànle

Ọláyínká Àkànle is Professor of Sociology at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria and Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa. His intersectional research interests include Migration and Diaspora Studies; Gender; Governance and Environment; Epistemology and Knowledge Production; Family and Sexuality; Child and Youth; Conflict, Crime and Security and Health and Medicine.