Middle-class youth fleeing Nigeria: rethinking African survival migration through the Japa phenomenon.
Migration for survival is commonly associated with refugees and asylum seekers who flee persecution, wars, and natural calamities. Yet, in Nigeria, university-educated, gainfully employed middle-class youth insist that leaving is a matter of survival and not a choice. This distinction is signalled b...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies Vol. 50; no. 16; pp. 4021 - 4041 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Sep2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=179416218&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 179416218 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 1369183X 56F jtl: Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies issn: 1369183X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2024 vid: 50 iid: 16 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 179416218 10.1080/1369183X.2024.2323049 ppf: 4021 ppct: 20 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.5MB tig: atl: Middle-class youth fleeing Nigeria: rethinking African survival migration through the Japa phenomenon. aug: au: Liu, Jing Jing affil: Department of Anthropology, Economics and Political Science, MacEwan University, Edmonton, Canada Department of Anthropology of Economic Experimentation, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany su: Middle class Political refugees Forced migration Price inflation Social reproduction sug: subj: Middle class Political refugees Forced migration Price inflation Social reproduction keyword: middle-class migration Nigeria survival youth ab: Migration for survival is commonly associated with refugees and asylum seekers who flee persecution, wars, and natural calamities. Yet, in Nigeria, university-educated, gainfully employed middle-class youth insist that leaving is a matter of survival and not a choice. This distinction is signalled by japa, a recently popularised term for 'to run' or 'to flee'. Young Nigerians view migration as an escape from intolerable domestic conditions – prolonged university strikes, overturned development progress, and unprecedented currency inflation. In practice, japa follows formal procedures but favours quick departures. But by framing migration as fleeing, youth emphasise their refusal to cope. Foremost, they emphasise urgent respite over rationalised projects of social reproduction or status maintenance. Scholars, however, tend to overlook emotional or existential motives for voluntary migration and essentialise survival drives to forced migration. Drawing on 21 interviews with Nigerian youths, this paper shows a need to rethink survival migration, particularly how we value destinations compared to departures, conflate urgent desires with immediate exits, and privilege social functions over individual sentiments. By analysing youth's interpretations of what survival means, we enrich our understanding of African migration beyond the binary of elite strategies for social reproduction or fateful journeys of forced migration. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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