The Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies, The Open University

THE FERGUSON CENTRE FOR
AFRICAN AND ASIAN STUDIES

Roehampton Conference Abstracts

19. Efurosibina Adegbija (Covenant University, Nigeria):
Cultural Influences of Economic Migration from Nigeria to the West
Abstract

Efurosibina Adegbija is Professor and Head of the Department of Languages and Mass Communication. He is the author of several articles and books including Language Attitudes in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Sociolinguistic Overview (1994) and Multilingualism: A Nigerian Case Study (2003). He is also a GIPSC Project coordinator.

1.1. Introduction:
When two divergent cultures come into contact either willingly or by force, it is natural for an imprint of one form or the other to be left in the lives of those involved both in the host culture and in the welcoming or receiving culture. In the case of economic brain drain, the normal pattern is for large numbers of professionals, sometimes non-professionals, to move from their homelands to the developed countries with the primary goal of earning a better living or securing a better and more hopeful future. This paper investigates the cultural consequences of this kind of economic migration.

1.2. Definitions of culture

2.0. Areas Impacted:
2.2.1 Core culture
2.2.2 Peripheral culture
2.2.3 Material culture
2.2.4 Non-material culture

3.0 Types of Influence:
Before Migration:
Influence predominant on predisposing thoughts, shaping of attitudes and decision-making and internal preparation for emigrating:
3.1.Admiration for target culture
3.2.Idealization of and often enhanced interest in target culture
3.3.partly media related
3.4. partly through interpersonal contacts
3.5. largely vicarious

After Migration: a lot also hinges on the predisposing attitude after arrival:
A range of influences possible:
3.6. Cultural diffusion results often in cultural rebirth
3.7. Reinterpretation of different aspects of one’s own culture, e.g. a taboo like not looking straight in the eye of an elder, giving out something using the left hand, greeting patterns, value on kinship, etc.
3.8. A re-engineered mindset, beliefs and attitudes
3.9. A reorientation of attributive patterns: causality, particularly in negative episodes, generally tends to be other-directed, or attributed to divine (usually devilish) motifs, e.g. calamities, deaths, failure, etc.
3.10. Loss of the connection, bonding and embeddedness provided by the extended family context in Nigeria: results in a devaluation or reinterpretation of family and marriage norms, often to align with that of the West, declining family moral values, divorce, etc.
3.11. Culturally erratic and idiosyncratic behavior such as men plaiting their hair, wearing earrings, ladies smoking, culturally questionable modes of dressing become permissible or tolerated, respect for elders, contract marriages for convenience without investigation about family background, compatibility, prostitution, invade the home culture and vice versa;
3.12. A hybrid culture sometimes develops, which is neither totally the home culture, nor that of the host culture.

Conclusion

One culture’s meat can be another’s poison. When two cultures contact in the lives of people, there is usually some form of mutual gain and benefit both at the individual and societal levels. Culture contact will also almost always result in a range of influences including the following:

• Appreciation of the host culture and depreciation in one’s;
• Depreciation in the other’s culture and appreciation in one’s;
• A complete or total loss of cultural being, essence or identity;
• The development of a hybrid cultural personality whose identity with culture A or B oscillates
depending on mood, occasion and participants in a particular context of interaction.

Contact of two cultures puts both on the cultural credit and deficit account at one and the same time. This is often true societally and individually. The cultural ledger book may go completely in the red when the presence of a particular cultural group becomes a menace to the host community. Balancing the cultural account to maintain some level of mutual benefit both for the individuals and the communities involved is where the challenge lies, and it is a big one because devising a coordinated effort to direct cross-cultural pollination is not an easy task.

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