Introduction: African International Migration to the West: Insights from Canada, Australia and Nigeria
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Author | Philomina Okeke‐Ihejirika |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13119 |
5
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imigInt Migr. 2023;61:5–9.
Currently, at 272 million globally, the number of international migrants across the globe already exceeds the projec-
tions of many experts for 2050 (IOM, 2020). Emigrants from the developing regions to Western industrialized coun-
tries 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 newcom-
ers 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 inter-
disciplinary 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 Contex-
tual 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 inte-
gration, 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
SPECIAL ISSUE
DOI: 10.1111/imig.13119
Received: 22 December 2022 Accepted: 30 December 2022
Introduction: African International Migration to
the West: Insights from Canada, Australia and
Nigeria
© 2023 International Organization for Migration.
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