Middle-class youth fleeing Nigeria

Rethinking African survival migration through the Japa phenomenon

Bibliographic Data

ID3649971
AuthorsJing Jing Liu (0000-0002-1900-4015, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume50
Issue16
Pages4021-4040
Publication date2024-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Community (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369183x.2024.2323049
OpenAlexW4392191723
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited51

Migration for survival is commonly associated with refugees and asylum seekers who flee persecution, wars, and natural calamities. Yet, in Nigeria, university-educated, gainfully employed middle-class youth insist that leaving is a matter of survival and not a choice. This distinction is signalled by japa, a recently popularised term for ‘to run’ or ‘to flee’. Young Nigerians view migration as an escape from intolerable domestic conditions – prolonged university strikes, overturned development progress, and unprecedented currency inflation. In practice, japa follows formal procedures but favours quick departures. But by framing migration as fleeing, youth emphasise their refusal to cope. Foremost, they emphasise urgent respite over rationalised projects of social reproduction or status maintenance. Scholars, however, tend to overlook emotional or existential motives for voluntary migration and essentialise survival drives to forced migration. Drawing on 21 interviews with Nigerian youths, this paper shows a need to rethink survival migration, particularly how we value destinations compared to departures, conflate urgent desires with immediate exits, and privilege social functions over individual sentiments. By analysing youth’s interpretations of what survival means, we enrich our understanding of African migration beyond the binary of elite strategies for social reproduction or fateful journeys of forced migration

Criminology · Elite · Forced migration · Persecution · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Sociology · Education and experiences of immigrants and refugees · Gender Studies · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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