Type of Document Master's Thesis Author Anonyuo, Felicia Chigozie URN etd-07282006-205822 Title Agency and Transnationalism: Social Organization among African Immigrants in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area Degree Master of Arts Department Anthropology and Geography Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Kathryn A. Kozaitis Committee Chair Keywords
- Postcolonialism
- Agency
- Transnationalism
- Immigrant social organizations
- African immigrants
- New immigration
Date of Defense 2006-06-29 Availability unrestricted Abstract ABSTRACT
Immigrants live transnational lives when they maintain transborder social ties, participate simultaneously in multi-local social relations, and engage in self-transforming identity negotiations that also impact their host societies and their communities of origin. Their social organizations manifest identity construction as agency, with their objectives reflecting particular culture production activities. This native ethnography of Atlanta’s sub-Saharan African immigrants combines 115 surveys of the general population, and 13 in-depth interviews of their organization leaders and members, to examine the potential problem solving instrumentality of social organizations. Study results show that organizational objectives do not reflect top community problems, but prioritize projects that confirm immigrant transnational lives. The organizations’ early potential for engineering non-tribal nationalism within the specific countries and the continent is a surprising finding. African philosophy is evoked to illuminate the relevance of pre-migratory identities and socialization as a possible homogenizer, but also a source of friction for immigrant integration.
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