“We Are Not Surviving, We Are Managing”: the constitution of a Nigerian diaspora along the contours of the global economy

Abstract

This ethnographic piece outlines how the geography of globalization and its socieconomic vicissitudes condition unique life experiences for Nigerian Igbo immigrants in the U.S. The elite class of Igbo people from Nigeria continue to immigrate to the U.S. in large numbers. As professionals, ethnic group members tend to settle in mainstream American neighborhoods, experiencing a high degree of structural integration into global professional workplaces and occupations. Ironically, the same physical and occupational mobility that disperses Igbo elites across the globe and across the U.S. also provides the enhanced means by which Igbo‐speaking people sustain their ethnic organizations and diasporic communities. Professional work, normally in places which are assimilated to the American mainstream despite being extra–Igbo contexts, actually encourage habits of interactive communication that are brought into the service of Igbo community cohesion. In that sense, a geographical distribution that is primarily socio‐economic is also parlayed into a means by which people come together through travel, through literacy, and through synchronous communication technologies.