Introduction: African International Migration to the West: Insights from Canada, Australia and Nigeria

Currently, at 272 million globally, the number of international migrants across the globe already exceeds the projections of many experts for 2050 (IOM, 2020). Emigrants from the developing regions to Western industrialized countries constitute a significant proportion of these recent global migrants and, not surprisingly, have attracted a fair share of this debate. Until the past decade, research on migrants to Western host societies has focussed largely on the challenges they face in or pose to their host societies (Fisher, 2013; Juswiak et al., 2014). It is safe to say that there is now an increasing interest in exploring their experiences as resilient and contributing members of their new homelands. The target populations for research, however, have not shifted much from the more established migrant groups within specific Western countries (Babatunde-Sowole et al., 2016). The experiences of more recent newcomers like Sub-Saharan (Black) Africans in less travelled destinations like Canada remain highly under-researched (Okeke-Ihejirika, Yohani, et al., 2020) This special issue is not by any means an attempt to provide exhaustive accounts to fill huge gaps in their histories and lived experiences. Rather, we wish to present a few insightful snapshots of their lives that hopefully underscore the need for more studies that could inform their transition and integration into Canada and to other comparable Western host societies where their numbers are growing. In effect, these four articles vividly point to what a potentially robust body of literature could lend to future research, policy and practice in migration and settlement. Until the 1980s, the popularly dubbed “Africa's black debate,” which ushered in what has become an endemic economic and political crisis, noted that Africans travelled to the West mainly to acquire higher education (Okpewho & Nzegwu, 2009). Currently, African migrants constitute one of the fastest growing immigrant groups in Western advanced countries. This special section will feature important findings from new empirical research, critical analysis of already documented evidence and theoretical and conceptual discourses. The issue includes contributions from four Western-based scholars, three in Canada and one in Australia. While this special issue features the works of a selected few, the areas of interest, quality of inquiry and flow of analyses demonstrate the wide range of interdisciplinary expertise. Most of the contributors are well known in the field of migration and settlement, and their research and scholarship have charted new paths within their fields of expertise as well as in broader interdisciplinary discourses. Their expertise in various fora of academic debates easily lends themselves to the central focus of the special edition which we have entitled: African International Migration to the West: Transnational, Empirical and Contextual Discourses. We hope that what this special section lacks in terms of the volume and number of contributors is to a reasonable extent compensated for by the broader reach of their collective analyses into existing discourses. Moreover, the four articles in this special section are strategically positioned to speak to a number of key factors that are crucial in understanding African migration to the West, including the challenges they face with transition and integration, their identities within the Western host mainstream and amid other marginalized populations, particularly, other Black populations, immigrant and otherwise. Our estimates, however, lean heavily on the Canadian context. First, we seek to capture as much as possible, life before and after migration; immigrants' experiences beyond the geophysical boundaries of their new host societies. The unprecedented rise of migrants crossing national and continental borders either in search of a better life or fleeing political conflicts has captured global concerns, but only in one direction. There is an increasing focus on migrants' safe passage, adequate support systems for transition and integration, and recognition of their strengths and contributions as members of their new society (United Nations, 2018). Philomina Okeke-Ihejirika and Ike Odimegwu draw attention to what often emerges as a one-sided conversation, bringing back into focus one crucial area that these global debates are taking attention away from the dire conditions of life in migrant-sending regions that produce both regular and irregular migrants. Beyond the focus on life before migration, virtually all the authors place their analyses of African migrant' lives within the context of recent turns in immigration theory, building on a number of key understandings. They reflect the shift towards transnationalism – the flow of people and goods across national boundaries propelled by forces of global capitalism and the exigencies of political upheaval (Okeke-Ihejirika & Salami, 2018). We stress a more easily agreed upon notion in the field that immigrants do not willingly sever ties to their homeland as they anchor themselves in a new soil. The previous static understanding of migration as a linear journey with little or no turnarounds or connections with original homelands has been replaced by an understanding that migrants are informed by and inform cultural identities and practices in homelands, diasporic communities and their host societies. As individuals, families and communities, the experiences and viewpoints of transnationals are marked by multiple social intersections, including gender, race, ethnicity, religion and language. Transnational ties are not only reciprocated in many ways, but (Mensah et al., 2013) also extend beyond their countries of origin, occurring in multiple spaces and modes, including digital platforms (Ibid). This special section also includes empirical research on the conditions of life in immigrant-sending countries that propel migration and ways they might be linked to the prospects of successful transition and integration in host societies (see Okeke-Ihejirika & Odimegwu, 2022). Second, we want to signal in more subtle forms some of the commonalities that Blacks in many Western industrialized countries share and some of the ways in which newcomers from Africa differ from older Western-based African origin populations. Sophie Yohani and Linda Kreitzer as well as Thashika Pillay's articles demonstrate some of the shared experiences and points of departure. Resilience is a facet of this commonly shared experience that is echoed in the analyses of the special section authors. The focus on Black resilience in the face of daunting discrimination is also timely; the United Nations declaration, affirming the Decade for People of African Descent (UNPAD 2015–2024), among others public policy research findings, not only give voice to an existing problem but urge a global response with measurable impact (United Nations, 2013). People of African origin are generally viewed as highly resilient mainly due to a protracted history of oppression and exploitation as well as marginalization in varied contemporary contexts (Ibid). But despite their resilience, people of African descent have disproportionately poor socio-economic indicators, including child poverty, poor education and training outcomes, precarious employment status, unique forms of systemic racisms and mental health stigmas (Statistics Canada, 2020; Taylor et al., 2020). Many of them wrestle with limited social support due to migration and separation from families of origin, anti-Black racism, and from lack of knowledge of how the Western host society system operates. In December 2013, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 68/237, proclaiming 2015–2024 the International Decade for People of African Descent (UNPAD) a time for concerted action to address their plight in more meaningful and effective ways. This proclamation recognizes “that people of African descent represent a distinct group whose human rights must be promoted and protected” (United Nations, 2013). This publication, we hope, will not only find its place among many others as the UNPAD comes to a close but may further contribute to new paths in research, policy and practice aimed at alleviating the systemic inequities these populations bear, which are not about to disappear after 2024. Beyond these commonalities, there are several differences that a hugely diverse population of Black (continental) Africans share in a new homeland which, in many ways, set them apart from other Black populations. In general, these immigrants and refugees come from about 40 ex-colonies of mainly Britain (e.g. Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda) and France (e.g. Mauritania, Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire) and form the majority of African newcomers (Flahaux & De Haas, 2016; Tettey & Puplampu, 2005). Often they are lumped with either the broader immigrant population or a large and growing pool of Blacks (Statistics Canada, 2019). The rise in the latter is largely fuelled by inflows of highly educated continental Africans in search of a better life abroad. In Canada, for instance, Black African immigrants and refugees grew from just 1.9% of newcomers to Canada before 1971 to 13% in 2016 (Statistics Canada, 2017) making Africa second among Canada's immigrant-sending regions. The population of African immigrants in Australia has grown from the late twentieth century into the twenty-first century. They come from virtually every country in Africa, with Black Africans increasingly representing a larger proportion of the newcomers from the continent. According to the Australian Census figures, the population of Sub-Saharan Africans living in Australia doubled between 2001 and 2011 (Gatwiri & Anderson, 2021). By 2016, their numbers had risen to 388,683, representing about 1.7% of the total population. Although a relatively small proportion of the national population, Black Africans the significant rise in their population year after year has not gone unnoticed (Ibid). Overall, Black Africans are socially diverse but share a longing for community life rooted in religion and culture, punctuated by the popular maxim of Ubuntu – I am because we are (De Liefde, 2007; Dube, 2009; Mnyaka & Motlhabi, 2005; Mosavela et al., 2015) healthy gender relations, family well-being and cohesive communities sustain Ubuntu (Okeke-Ihejirika, Creese, et al., 2020). Farida Fozdar and Sophie Yohani and Linda Kreitzer, in their contributions underscore the crucial importance of community building to Black African newcomers' transition and integration, identifying some of the potential consequences of limited support, especially in the case of mental health. Black African newcomers' history and immigration trajectories differ significantly from other Blacks. They are relatively young, mainly from non-settler colonial societies and even more importantly, unfamiliar with anti-Black racism. Unlike more established and older Black populations, African Black immigrant cohorts do not experience the high rates of single-parent, female-headed households or economically marginalized men (Morrissey, 1989; Quinlan, 2006; Quinlan & Flinn, 2003), stemming from long-standing systemic inequities rooted in slavery and colonization. These differences render new and unique constellations to the barriers they face in rebuilding their lives. One of the special section articles by Pillay explores such barriers in the context of education. Black youth, as Pillay's article demonstrates, must navigate formal education systems that are structured to benefit and perpetuate the very settler colonial state apparatus that marginalizes them. Third, this special section also aligns with one major point of emphasis for International Migration – a policy perspective on research findings. In this regard, we welcome a fairly rare contribution to Western debates – a perspective from the African continent that vividly portrays life before migration, the push and pull factors that forcefully compel emigration, and the implications for the societies left behind. Based on the existing literature and the findings of our own research, we argue that policymakers and service providers do not yet fully recognize the complexities of these communal relations, their protective functions when understood from an emic (within culture) perspective, and ways such relations may mediate the lives of Black African newcomers in Western societies. These newcomers often lack the necessary support and information to reappraise their cultural worldviews, social hierarchies and patterns of male–female interactions, let alone confront new social and economic barriers posed by anti-Black racism and discrimination. Consequently, the early years of transition are characterized by severe deskilling, financial hardship, domestic violence, parent–child conflict mental ill-health and lateral violence and tensions; these challenges could also result from already established patterns carried over from countries of origin, some of which are exacerbated by racism (Okeke-Ihejirika, Yohani, et al., 2020). The lack of reliable, accurate pre-arrival information further complicates these barriers (Ibid). Fourth and finally, this issue not only exposes the limitations of existing literature on African migrants but also points the way for future research. While each article provides recommendations specific to the issues addressed, the contributors unanimously highlight a major gap – much of what we know about this population rests largely on small purposive samples of newcomers from a handful of African countries. Thus, collectively, this issue highlights an urgent need for studies that employ larger samples with a diversity of participants and more quantitative work. In this regard, we call for research that fans critical debates about how to conceptualize, research and support Black newcomers from Africa. In their bid to identify major empirical and theoretical gaps to inform new directions for research and knowledge mobilization, we urge researchers to critique, rather than wholly accept, existing research agendas without probing their sociocultural, economic and political contexts, which often are innately Eurocentric; our own research findings, for instance, show that for Black Africans, resilience is not simply about survival; it is about building thriving communities of fully functioning citizens of their new host societies (Okeke-Ihejirika, 2020; Okeke-Ihejirika, Creese, et al., 2020). In this regard, there is an urgent need for research using wider samples, more quantitative work and longitudinal tracking in order to gain a better understanding of Black African immigrants, the challenges they face as newcomers and the strengths they could bring to the process of transition and integration.