“Readers will be impressed by the diverse range of case studies and detailed evidence from people’s personal lives. Overall, the chapters emphasize the importance of taking a multidimensional and interdisciplinary approach to understanding social mobility. Although this is a highly specialized field of study, the topics and chapters are well written and accessible enough to be of value to a wide range of readers…Recommended” • Choice

“Whereas many edited books appear fragmented, this book comes across as consistent and well edited…This book fills empirical gaps and provides theoretical nuances, not only to simplistic notions of the current African narratives, but also to our conceptual understanding of social mobility.” • African Studies Review

“This is a very important and timely contribution to the study of mobilities and immobilities in Africa. The volume advances our understanding of social positionalities as these intertwine and mediate with wider political and moral economies in contemporary Africa.” • Mattia Fumanti, University of St Andrews

“Addresses thorny, contemporary realities and draws on a really thought-provoking theoretical palette in opening up debate. Moving beyond social inequality and linear ideas of social mobility is a sort of manifesto that others will take up.” • David Pratten, University of Oxford

Grounded in both theory and ethnography, this volume insists on taking social positionality seriously when accounting for Africa’s current age of polarizing wealth. To this end, the book advocates a multidimensional view of African societies, in which social positions consist of a variety of intersecting social powers - or ‘capitals’ – including wealth, education, social relationships, religion, ethnicity, and others. Accordingly, the notion of social im/mobilities emphasizes the complexities of current changes, taking us beyond the prism of a one-dimensional social ladder, for social moves cannot always be apprehended through the binaries of ‘gains’ and ‘losses’.

Subject: Mobility Studies Anthropology (General) Sociology

Area: Africa

LC: HN780.Z9 .S633 2020

BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; POL053000 POLITICAL SCIENCE/World/African; SOC008010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Ethnic Studies/African Studies

BIC: JFFM Social mobility; JHMC Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography