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African Immigrants in Istanbul, TurkeyThis research was conducted among West African and Central African migrants in the city, a group that I estimate between five and seven thousand. It includes immigrant groups from French-speaking and English-speaking countries. Nigerians, Senegalese, and Congolese from the DRC are the most numerous, each one of these represented by a thousand or more immigrants. The migration of west and central Africans to Turkey is part of growing south-south demographic movements that present challenges to the current social science discourse on global migrations. A major difference exists between the circumstances and motivating factors of sub-Saharan Africans who arrive in Turkey from the Horn of Africa or from East Africa (not included in the universe of my research) and those who arrive from West and Central Africa (and constitute my topic of investigation), and this difference points to the theoretical underpinnings of my project. During my year of fieldwork (2010-2011), I learned that the preparation, information gathering, calculation, and personal determination that lie behind most migration stories is the element most seriously lacking from the current literature on African immigrants. African Film Festival at the Istanbul ModernAfrican film series organized with the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art in Turkey. The series presented ten masterpieces of African filmmaking produced in the past two decades in eight different countries. See Gümüş Hilal News Program and Interview and the Hurriyet Daily News story. Television Segments
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