Postcolonial Portuguese Migration to Angola Migrants or Masters?

Grounded in extensive and original ethnographic fieldwork, this book makes a novel contribution to migration studies by examining a European labour migration to the Global South, namely contemporary Portuguese migration to Angola in a postcolonial context. In doing so, it explores everyday encounters at work between the Portuguese migrants and their Angolan "hosts", and it analyses how the Luso-African postcolonial heritage interplays with the recent Portuguese-Angolan migration in the (re-)construction of power relations and identities. Based on ethnographic interviews, the book describes the Angolan-Portuguese relationship as characterized not only by hierarchies of power, but also by ambivalence and hybridity. This research demonstrates that the identities of the ex-colonized Angolan and the Portuguese ex-colonizer are shaped by a history of unequal and violent power relations. Further, it reveals how this history has produced a sense of intimacy between the two, and the often fraught nature of this relationship. Combining a strong connection to the field of migration studies with a postcolonial perspective, this original work will appeal to students and scholars of migration, postcolonial studies, the sociology of work and African Studies. 

About the author

Lisa Åkesson is Associate Professor in Anthropology at the School of Global Studies, the University of Gothenburg, and Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden.

Product details

• Authors: Lisa Åkesson
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 01.01.2018
• Subject: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Social structure research
• EAN: 9783319730516
• ISBN: 978-3-31-973051-6
• Pages: 154
• Illustrations: XI, 154 p.
• Dimensions (packing): 15.4 x 21.8 x 1.5 cm
• Weight (packing): 315 g
• Series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship
• Subjects: Migration, Ungleichheit, Integration, Kulturanthropologie, Imperialismus, Afrika, Portugal, C, Kolonialismus und Imperialismus, Angola, Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, Ethnographie, Völkerkunde, Social Inequality, Politik und Staat, Auswanderung, Kolonialgeschichte, Soziologie: Arbeit und Beruf, Kolonialismus, Immigration, Bevölkerung und Migrationsgeographie, Zuwanderung, Africa, Anthropologie / Kulturanthropologie, Soziologie / Arbeit, Wirtschaft, Technik, Wanderung (soziologisch), Migration (soziologisch), Ethnologie - Ethnisch, Ethnografie - Ethnographie, Einwanderung (soziologisch), Migration (soziologisch) / Einwanderung, biotechnology, Social Sciences, Social & ethical issues, Colonialism & imperialism, Social & cultural anthropology, Politics & government, Expat, Ethnography, Postcolonial, Social Structure, Social Inequality, Social groups and identities, Social Structure, Hybridity, Sociology: work & labour, African Politics, imperialism, Emigration and immigration, Imperialism and Colonialism, Sociology of Work, Industrial sociology, Africa—Politics and government, Gesellschaftliche Gruppen, Gemeinschaften und Identitäten, Lusotropicalism, Labourrelations, ColonialDiscourse, Economicmigration, South-Northmigration, Identitiesatwork, Angolanparty-state, Workplacehierarchies, ethnographiesofencounter