Beyond Expectations examines the nature of second generation Nigerian

adults incorporation into British and American society. It seeks to understand

how race, ethnicity, and class shape identity and how globalization,

transnationalism and national context inform sense of self. In this talk, I

discuss the new theory presented in the book called beyond racialization

theory that helps explain why the Nigerian second generation did not forge

a reactive blackness, why they did not become culturally indistinguishable

from their proximal hosts, and why they have had more positive assimilation

outcomes. This theory identifies three key contributing factors: relations

with the proximal host (African Americans in the United States and Caribbeans

in Britain); the role of ethnicity as a resource in multitudinous ways; and

the role of transnational linkages and perspectives in transmitting a

diasporic ethnicity and offering up more ethnic options.

ABOUT DR. IMOAGENE

Dr. Imoagene studies International Migration and Immigrant Incorporation

with a special focus on firrst and second generation African immigrants in the

British and American Diasporas; Inter-ethnic group (black-on-black)

relations; Immigration and Education; and Migration and Development.

She takes a comparative approach in her research. Her book on the intersections

of race, class, and ethnicity among second generation Africans titled

Beyond Expectations: Second Generation Nigerians in the United States and

Britain was published by University of California Press. Her current research

project--The Dreams Project--is a multi-site study on Ghanaian and Nigerian

Diversity Visa Lottery Winners in the United States and their families back home.