Nigerian London and British Hong Kong: rethinking migration, ethnicity and urban space through journeys

Abstract

The city remains a crucial arena in condensing the challenges we face in migration and transnational research. Our understanding of cities and their connections with migration and ethnicity lies at the centre of these challenges and raises two problems demanding urgent attention. These relationships are under-theorised and poorly demonstrated. Secondly, older, more settled notions of the relationship between ethnicity, migration and space persist, supporting new nationalisms. This paper suggests that we think about ethnicity and migration cartographically as translocal journeys around and between cities.

Keywords:

• migration
• mobility
• cities
• space
• ethnicity
• journeys

Notes

1. This was a NORFACE-funded project called ‘The Architectures of Contemporary Religious Transmission’, which had research partners investigating London, Oslo and Hamburg.

2. The research in Hong Kong was a 5-year project, whereas the research on the Igbo Catholic Church was a side product of a larger research project rather than its main focus as well as being much shorter. This difference reflects in the kinds of detail I was able to provide in each case study in this article.