Phillip Thebe

Imaginations, Liminality and Diasporic Livability Phillip Thebe

This book reconnoitres my migration experience to Europe from an anthropological perspective. It answers two key questions: What are the sources of Imaginations of diasporic livability? How is liminality experienced in migration situations? The book is targeted at researchers and academics interested in fathoming post-modern approaches to research, including studies of 'selves', but also appeals, in its simplistic narrative genre, to non academic audiences who can easily relate to a migration story, possibly similar to their own. I gathered that the family and society, economy, and politics were central in (re) shaping my imaginations of diasporic livability. Moreover, I engaged in certain activities or rituals such as creating friendships, communicating with family back home, changing my lifestyle abroad and taking time to travel, as a response to my liminal condition, subsuming from emigrating from my home country, but neither fully integrating to Europe. With this book, I argue that boundaries of the lifer-course or diverse migration experiences in particular, are rich with cultural data available to researchers to interpret, analyse and narrate in multifarious ways.