Premium
Igbo professional migratory orders, hometown associations and ethnicity in the USA
Author(s) -
REYNOLDS RACHEL
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
global networks
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.685
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1471-0374
pISSN - 1470-2266
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0374.2009.00251.x
Subject(s) - igbo , ethnic group , essentialism , gender studies , identity (music) , immigration , globalization , sociology , politics , political science , anthropology , aesthetics , law , linguistics , philosophy
In this article I examine ethnographically the discursive means by which Igbo speakers in hometown associations in the USA are crafting lives and communities abroad to express a territory‐bound sense of ethnic group membership. I contend that Igbo speakers living abroad are undergoing a process of ethnic formation or ethnification that is structured by increased rates of immigration and recent historical and political change in Nigeria. In response to these events, shifting representations of self and group identity incur an essentialist quality from abroad. Such essentialism is a paradoxical earmark of globalization for the brain‐drain Igbo professional.