Beyond the Scrapyard: An Ethnography of Igbo Migrants in Germany

When Igbo men from Nigeria gathered in a scrap yard in an industrial estate in the Ruhr city of Essen to dissemble cars, refrigerators, and other technical waste, surrounded by the sounds of unfamiliar music and the wafts of exotic foods, they met with incomprehension and mistrust from their neighbouring German citizens and the municipal authorities. The present study offers the very insights into these immigrants’ socio-cultural identity that enable one to overcome such ill-informed responses. It is an ‘ethnography of transnational transactions’ – of managing the trade between the scrap yard and the markets in Lagos and Onitsha and interacting with their German co-citizens in various social and religious contexts.

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https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-57079698212

ISBN
978-3-8405-0257-6 (first published by readbox unipress)
978-3-487-16130-3 (reprint by Georg Olms Publishers)

Paperback, 288 pages