Diasporan West African communities: the Kru in freetown & liverpool

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.