The Sources of Risk

There are a number of reasons why aspirational migrants from Ghana are engaged in a particularly risky enterprise. This chapter analyzes the sources of that risk in both the modern Ghanaian context of economic growth and inequality and in the U.S. context of anti-immigrant sentiment and the racial order. The chapter focuses particularly on how these larger forces place a strain on their relationships, both with others in the immigrant community and with native-born Americans in the host community. It shows how even extended migrant networks, which are usually portrayed as a resource for transnational migrants, can be a source of risk in the context of high aspirations and group competition.

Business · Competition (biology) · Context (archaeology) · Demographic economics · Development economics · Economics · Geography · Immigration · Inequality · Order (exchange) · Political science · Resource (disambiguation) · Sociology · Computer Science · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy