Migrants and Strangers in an African City: Exile, Dignity, Belonging

In cities throughout Africa, local inhabitants live alongside largepopulations of strangers. Bruce Whitehouse explores the condition ofstrangerhood for residents who have come from the West African Sahel to settle inBrazzaville, Congo. Whitehouse considers how these migrants live simultaneouslyinside and outside of Congolese society as merchants, as Muslims in a predominantlynon-Muslim society, and as parents seeking to instill in their children the customsof their communities of origin. Migrants and Strangers in an African City challengesPan-Africanist ideas of transnationalism and diaspora in today’s globalizedworld.