Immigrant Exclusion and Insecurity in Africa Coethnic Strangers

This book explores the diverse immigrant experiences in urban West Africa, where some groups integrate seamlessly while others face exclusion and violence. It shows, counterintuitively, that cultural similarities between immigrants and their hosts do not help immigrant integration and may, in fact, disrupt it. This book is one of the first to describe and explain in a systematic way immigrant integration in the developing world, where half of all international migrants go. It relies on intensive fieldwork tracking two immigrant groups in three host cities, and draws from in-depth interviews and survey data to paint a picture of the immigrant experience from both immigrant and host perspectives.

1. Introduction; 2. Immigrants and their leaders; 3. Immigrant exclusion from host societies; 4. Alternative explanations; 5. Mass immigrant expulsions in Africa; 6. Conclusion; Appendices.

Claire Adida is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego, where she is also a faculty affiliate with the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies and with the Policy Design and Evaluation Lab. Her work has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Comparative Political Studies and Economics and Politics. Her research applies experimental, survey and interview methods to the study of ethnic politics. Adida's fieldwork has taken her to Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Ghana, Uganda and South Africa.