The New African Diaspora in Vancouver: Migration, Exclusion and Belonging

The New African Diaspora in Vancouver: Migration, Exclusion and Belonging

Weight 0.00 lbs
By Gillian Creese
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division © 2011
World Rights
288 Pages
Paper
ISBN 9781442611597
Published Aug 2011
$27.95
Cloth
ISBN 9781442642959
Published Aug 2011
$60.00
Description
Author
Contents
Reviews
The New African Diaspora in Vancouver documents the experiences of immigrants from countries in sub-Saharan Africa on Canada's west coast. Despite their individual national origins, many adopt new identities as ‘African’ and are actively engaged in creating a new, place-based ‘African community.’ In this study, Gillian Creese analyzes interviews with sixty-one women and men from twenty-one African countries to document the gendered and racialized processes of community-building that occur in the contexts of marginalization and exclusion as they exist in Vancouver.

Creese reveals that the routine discounting of previous education by potential employers, the demeaning of African accents and bodies by society at large, cultural pressures to reshape gender relations and parenting practices, and the absence of extended families often contribute to downward mobility for immigrants. The New African Diaspora in Vancouver maps out how African immigrants negotiate these multiple dimensions of local exclusion while at the same time creating new spaces of belonging and emerging collective identity.

Gillian Creese is the director of the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies and a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Migration, Diaspora Spaces, and 'Canadianness'

1 A New African Diaspora

2 Erasing Linguistic Capital

3 Downward Mobility, Class Dislocation, and Labour Market Barriers

4 Reproducing Difference at Work

5 Gender, Families, and Transitions

6 Identity and Spaces of Belonging

7 Practices of Belonging: Building the African Community

Notes

References

‘In this clearly written, interesting book — the first to explore the unique experiences of Africans in Vancouver — Gillian Creese provides useful information on a diaspora population that has not yet received enough academic attention.’

John Sorenson, Department of Sociology, Brock University

‘Well researched and insightful, The New African Diaspora in Vancouver provides important information for students, researchers, and policymakers on the discrimination faced by immigrants from Africa in Canada. Gillian Creese makes a valuable contribution to this area of study by analyzing detailed field work and synthesizing scholarship on Diaspora, racism, and citizenship.’

Vijay Agnew, Division of Social Science, York University