‘Based on first rate ethnographic research, Jill Alpes illuminates how young Africans attempt to migrate ‘at all costs’. By pinpointing the paradoxes between mobility and control, the book provides fresh insights into how clandestine migration manifest itself in ways more complex than indicated in conventional human trafficking and smuggling literature.’ – Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, Danish Institute of International Studies, Copenhagen'By standing still at the cleavage between how people prepare for migration and how receiving states regulate migration before it takes place, Alpes offers us a new vision of mobility and sets an example of how migration can be fruitfully examined by focusing on brokers, consulate officers and citizens in the global South. Ethnographically vivid and analytically insightful, this is a very timely and powerful book' – Biao Xiang, University of Oxford, UK‘By taking the ethnographer's perspective 'from below', this book challenges dominant understandings of power and legitimacy in African migration.’ – Heidi Østbø Haugen, Journal of Peace Research'Jill Alpes’ book on Cameroonian overseas migrants stands out as a welcome alternative as it focuses on the power of the social. She does so by adopting an extended case-study approach: the book revolves around insightful portrayals of biographic narratives and detailed descriptions of the social practices of only a handful of individuals – the migration brokers James and Walther; aspiring migrants Claire, Josephine, Pamella and Victorine; and the author’s research assistant, Delphine. Thus, the book is at odds with the academic practice that is increasingly becoming fashionable (no doubt following from shrinking research funding): to make generalizing statements based on apt illustrations. The book instead delves deeply into the layered, often contradictory, motivations as well as the social forces driving ordinary Cameroonians to venture into overseas travel, subtly linking individual issues of bushfalling (the local vernacular for overseas migration) to collective problems of involuntary immobility.' – Joost Beuving, The Journal of the International African Institue"This is a really fascinating book that demonstrates the value of ethnography to migration research, and what it offers to our understandings of legal processes in particular." - Bridget Anderson, University of Bristol"This book would be a valuable source for researchers and students with an interest in trafficking, human smuggling, forced migration, migrant agency and migration in West Africa." - Priya Deshingkar, University of Sussex
