Diasporan West African communities: the Kru in freetown & liverpool

Diane Frost

Review of African Political Economy, 2002, vol. 29, issue 92, 285-300

Abstract: This article will examine the experience of two transplanted communities of West African kru migrants. Originally from Liberia, these labour migrants became involved in both internal African migration as well as external migration to Europe. It will distinguish the cause and mechanism of migration within the broader development of British colonial activity in West Africa. Freetown and Liverpool will be examined in the context of these broader developments since they became two important centres in Kru diasporic settlement. Economic opportunities became the raison d'etre for Kru migration and this manifest itself in terms of short‐term transient migration to the permanent establishment of thriving diasporic communities. Socio‐political and historical conditions provided the broader parameters within which these peoples became ‘scattered’ across the globe over the last two hundred years or more. The historical and economic connections between the two ports of Liverpool and Freetown, and the role of the Kru in British maritime trade here influenced patterns of settlement and the nature of community organisation and development. The article will examine current theories to the study of diasporan communities and will draw on ethnographic research undertaken in Freetown and Liverpool.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03056240208704614 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revape:v:29:y:2002:i:92:p:285-300

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CREA20

DOI: 10.1080/03056240208704614

Access Statistics for this article

Review of African Political Economy is currently edited by Graham Harrison, Branwen Gruffydd Jones, Claire Mercer, Nicolas Pons-Vignon, Aurelia Segatti and Ray Bush

More articles in Review of African Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().