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Integration from the Beach: Insights from the Experiences of Artisanal Fishing Immigrants in Pointe-Noire City, Congo-Brazzaville

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Part of the book series: Global Diversities ((GLODIV))

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Abstract

Data gathered longitudinally through mixed methods illustrates how West African migrants in Pointe-Noire (Congo Brazzaville) use their position in artisanal fisheries to negotiate a “right to settle and work.” The study documents how their practices in a contested beach space create informal institutions that facilitate their collective attitude of national belonging. It highlights how practical aspects of integration are negotiated between immigrants and hosts at the ground—on the beach—rather than through formal policy frameworks. More specifically, it points to five important avenues through which this negotiation occurs: coalition building, mobilisation of institutional resources (both formal and informal), know-how positioning, balancing “togetherness” with “difference’, and the appropriation of space. It ultimately argues that in weakly regulated social and geographic sites, immigrants are able to find bottom-up means of integrating by entering the economic and housing spaces through informal activities and economic solidarity.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics and Population Studies, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

    Gabriel Tati

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  1. Gabriel Tati
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

    Oliver Bakewell

  2. African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Loren B. Landau

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Tati, G. (2018). Integration from the Beach: Insights from the Experiences of Artisanal Fishing Immigrants in Pointe-Noire City, Congo-Brazzaville. In: Bakewell, O., Landau, L. (eds) Forging African Communities. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58194-5_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58194-5_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-58193-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-58194-5

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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