Brokering High-Risk Migration and Illegality in West Africa

Using Cameroon as a case-study, this book shows what makes young Africans pursue migration at all costs. While the free flow of capital and commodities is often celebrated, there is no free circulation for most people. This book takes paradoxes between mobility and closure as its starting point and demonstrates local attitudes towards migration risks against the backdrop of high migration aspirations and low capabilities for Cameroonians. In showing how market, state and family actors interact within nexus that both constrains agency, yet creates productive openings, this book examines a multitude of actors and factors that create vulnerabilities for aspiring migrants.