By Kojo Opoku Aidoo

The authors will be happy to read and respond to the feedback. Please feel free to post comments below or email me at thomas123manuel[at]gmail.com. As this is a draft paper, it is requested that the paper not be quoted or cited till the final version is published. The paper titled Intra-Regional Mobilities, Seething Xenophobia And Grassroots Pan-Africanism: Implications For Ghana-Nigeria Relations is by Kojo Opoku Aidoo & Lang T.K.A. Nubuor of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. The abstract and full download of the paper can be found below:

In this paper, we explore the origins and implications of seething xenophobia arising out of intra-regional migrations in West Africa as they impact on Ghano-Nigerian relations within the set context of Grassroots Pan-Africanism. We observe that grassroots migrations within the West African sub-region mount informal pressures on the micro-States for the integration of the entire region. These pressures are reflected in formal State policies for such integration. We trace the slow pace of policy implementation at such formal levels to a contradictory process of grassroots tolerance and anxieties towards migrants in the sub-region. We embark on this within the framework of developing class and historic ethnocentric dynamics whereby the ruling classes instrumentally and instinctively uphold and defend the continued existence of these unviable micro-States in their own interest. These informal and formal processes are viewed within the larger spectrum of trans-continental grassroots migrations powered by class and ethnic dynamics within and across the micro-States in Africa – in effect, Grassroots Pan-Africanism. References to emigration from the sub-region are only tangential. In all this, we are focused on the pedagogical significance of immigration and emigration within the sub-region as manifested in grassroots movements among West African States in the process of their integration. Clearly, a political economy perspective is employed to bring out the complexities of the xenophobic problematic and its implications involved in such an African process of integration.

Full paper is available here: Final Draft - Lang and Kojo