The Diaspora's Role in Africa: Transculturalism, Challenges, and Development

Africans living in the diaspora can be agents of change, using their hybrid identities to promote social change and sustainable development in their African homelands. However, they face challenges in navigating their relationships with their home countries. This book explores the role of the diaspora in Africa's development, including their influence on Western cultural hegemony, the portrayal of Africa in the Western media, and the potential for collaboration between African Diaspora communities and citizen-residents.

Format: Hardback
Length: 300 pages
Publication date: 08 November 2021
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Africans living in the diaspora have a unique position as potential agents of change in helping to address Africa’s political and socioeconomic challenges. In addition to sending financial remittances, their multiple, hybrid identities in and out of geographical and psychocultural spaces allow them to play a role as cultural and political ambassadors to foster social change and sustainable development back in their African homelands. However, this hybrid position is not without challenges, and this book reflects some of the conundrums faced by members of the diaspora as they negotiate their relationships with their home countries.

The author uses her lived experiences and empirical research to ask: are members of the diaspora conduits of Western cultural hegemony at the cost of their traditional preservation and meaningful development in Africa? How does the Western media’s portrayal of Africa as the "Dark Continent" in the 21st century influence their decision-making process to invest back home? How could African nations’ governments manage their relationships with citizens abroad to motivate them to invest in their home countries? How do some citizen-residents in Africa and African Diaspora communities perceive each other in the context of Africa’s development? How could the African Diaspora collaborate with citizen-residents across growth sectors to impact Africa’s development? The book hopes to inspire agents of change within the diaspora and features diverse African entrepreneurs’ success stories and their experiences of tackling these challenges.

The book will be of interest to aspiring entrepreneurs, researchers across African studies, and the expanding and vibrant field of diaspora research.

Weight: 750g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781138491946