Africa's unholy migrants: mobility and migrant morality in the age of borders

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Periodical article

Title:	Africa's unholy migrants: mobility and migrant morality in the age of borders
Author:	Bezabeh, Samson A.
Year:	2017
Periodical:	African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society (ISSN 1468-2621)
Volume:	116
Issue:	462
Pages:	1-17
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Ethiopia Europe
Subjects:	international migration illegal migration migrants ethics attitudes
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adw046
Abstract:	This article sheds new light on the migration of Africans to the European Union by looking at how spatial mobility relates to migrant morality, informed by in-depth qualitative interviews with members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Paris. Although issues such as discrimination and exclusion are salient features of contemporary migration, the process of migration across space in the 'age of borders' also forces migrants to appraise their shared moral values and ethical standards. Using migrant morality as an entry point, the article demonstrates how borders define migrant lives, irrespective of their legal status. The process of negotiating these borders leads to profound experiences of self-doubt, the testing and alteration of gender relations, and processes of self-evaluation and ethical self-fashioning that serve in both shaping migrant life as well as in producing forms of resistance. The article reveals how migrants are embedded in multi-layered experiences that are simultaneously personal, social, spiritual, and political. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]