Managing Multiplicity: Adult Children of Post-Independence Nigerians and Belonging in Britain

Article


Botticello, J. 2020. Managing Multiplicity: Adult Children of Post-Independence Nigerians and Belonging in Britain. Social Inclusion. 8 (1), p. 314–323. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v8i1.2473
AuthorsBotticello, J.
Abstract

Migration remains a contentious and divisive topic, particularly with the rise of xenophobia and far right ideologies, which seek to demonize migrants as neither belonging nor welcome in the host society. This reduction leaves the realities of postcolonial migrants as misunderstood and misrepresented. Particularly misunderstood are the children of post-colonial migrants, who were born and raised in the UK by families seeking to better themselves in the ‘Mother land,’ while also aiming to maintain connectivity to traditions and practices from homelands. For some children born in the UK to Nigerian émigrés, family crises precipitated the need for alternative care arrangements, entailing recourse to fostering, boarding schools, or institutional care for periods of time during childhood. Conflicts between British society’s and parents’ cultural values, overt racism and hostility from host society, and differential experiences of extra-family care have impressed upon these children, now adults, both their multiple exclusions and potential belongings. As a result of their traumatic experiences, these adults, now in their 50s and 60s, embody multiculturalism in their abilities to embrace, navigate, and endure in a host country that expresses unwillingness at best and outright hostility at worst toward their presence as UK nationals and progeny of the project of Empire. While continuing to be framed by harsh micro- and macro-conditions, these adult children reveal that belonging can be self-determined through choices on how and with whom they choose to live and grow.

JournalSocial Inclusion
Journal citation8 (1), p. 314–323
ISSN2183-2803
Year2020
PublisherCogitatio Press
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Anyone
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v8i1.2473
Web address (URL)https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v8i1.2473
Publication dates
Online25 Mar 2020
Publication process dates
Accepted31 Jan 2020
Deposited24 Mar 2020
Copyright holder© 2020 The Author
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