The Wherewithal of Life

Ethics, Migration, and the Question of Well-Being
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-0-520-27672-7
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 272 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 151 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 381 g

The Wherewithal of Life engages with current developments in the anthropology of ethics and migration studies to explore in empirical depth and detail the life experiences of three young men – a Ugandan migrant in Copenhagen, a Burkina Faso migrant in Amsterdam, and a Mexican migrant in Boston – in ways that significantly broaden our understanding of the existential situations and ethical dilemmas of those migrating from the global south. Michael Jackson offers the first biographically based phenomenological account of migration and mobility, providing new insights into the various motives, tactics, dilemmas, dreams, and disappointments that characterize contemporary migration. It is argued that the quandaries of African or Mexican migrants are not unique to people moving between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ worlds. While more intensely felt by the young, seeking to find a way out of a world of limited opportunity and circumscribed values, the experiences of transition are familiar to us all, whatever our age, gender, ethnicity or social status – namely, the impossibility of calculating what one may lose in leaving a settled life or home place; what one may gain by risking oneself in an alien environment; the difficulty of striking a balance between personal fulfillment and the moral claims of kinship; and the struggle to know the difference between ‘concrete’ and ‘abstract’ utopias (the first reasonable and worth pursuing; the second hopelessly unattainable).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jackson, Michael

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Sozialethnologie: Familie, Gender, Soziale Gruppen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie der Lebensart, Well-Being

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preamble

Emmanuel

Roberto

Ibrahim

Postscript

Appendix: Existential Mobility

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Michael Jackson is an anthropologist and Distinguished Professor of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. His many anthropological books include Existential Anthropology, The Palm at the End of the Mind, and The Other Shore. He is the author and editor of over thirty books.