No abstract

Literature on diaspora engagement in development activities has centred on the contributions of migrating adults to the 'homeland', which range from private transfers to single households, to community development projects. While such studies often focus on the impact of such activities on the country of origin, relatively few have focused on what transpires during development encounters and how this affects migrants', and especially young people's, motivation to engage transnationally over time. This paper combines migration and development, transnational migration studies and second generation 'returns' literature, to address these gaps. It studies the motivations of transnational youth to engage in development encounters, which they referred to as 'giving back', in the context of their mobility trajectories. Drawing on 17 months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands and accompanying young people during trips to Ghana, we show that giving back contributes to a sense of purpose that connects them transnationally. Young people's expectations of giving back were embedded in community narratives, which framed this as a means to 'become successful' in culturally valued ways. While young people sometimes encountered unexpected surprises, emotions experienced during development encounters led to learning that ultimately resulted in enhanced intentions of transnational engagement.

This article analyses the ways in which young people with a migration background develop their own transnational engagement with their or their parents’ country of origin. Drawing on 17-months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands and Ghana, we add to the emerging literature on ‘return’ mobilities by analysing young people of Ghanaian background, irrespective of whether they or their parents migrated, and by looking at an under-researched form of mobility that they engage in: that of attending funerals in Ghana. Funerals occupy a central role in Ghanaian society, and thus allow young people to gain knowledge about cultural practices, both by observing and embodying them, and develop their relationships with people in Ghana. Rather than reproducing their parents’ transnational attachments, young people recreate these according to their own needs, which involves dealing with tensions. Peer relationships—which have largely gone unnoticed in transnational migration studies—play a significant role in this process.

It has been several years since the term “Afropolitanism” was coined and instigated an intense debate in both the offline and online world. Although Afropolitanism is celebrated for highlighting positive depictions of Africa, it has also been criticised for its supposedly exclusive and elitist focus. Several scholars have distinguished Afropolitanism from Pan-Africanism by framing it as the latter’s apolitical younger version. Following the discussion around these perceived differences, this paper investigates how Afropolitanism negotiates the African diaspora discourse in relation to Pan-Africanism. Thus far, the study of Afropolitanism has remained mostly limited to the field of literary and cultural studies. In order to move the discussion on this term further, this paper explores the lived experiences of twelve black Londoners with Afropolitanism and Pan-Africanism. By using the notion of “performance,” I show that Afropolitanism and Pan-Africanism are constructed and deconstructed in both diverse and overlapping ways. The narratives emerging out of this dialogue question the centrality of the Middle Passage epistemology and the tendency to essentialize experiences in the African diaspora discourse.

Drawing on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands and Ghana, this paper combines 'return' mobilities literature and youth studies to analyse the role of leisure practices during 'homeland' visits in transnational youth's way of relating to Ghana when they are entering into adulthood. Using the notion of mobility trajectories, the paper shows that leisure practices facilitate young people's ability to establish and renew intimate transnational relationships with diasporic friends, and Ghana-based same-generation relatives and romantic partners.Differing from earlier stays in Ghana, young people expressed their emerging sense of independence by exploring alternative sides of the country with these peers, based on common interests and belonging to the same life-cycle cohort. The findings add complexity to the notion of the 'homeland' as a monolithic place of reconnecting with family and roots by drawing attention to the intersection between young people's pathways to adulthood and transnational mobility.