The special issue “Cities of Contagion: Pandemic Precarity, Migration, and Food Security in Urban Africa” co-edited by MiFOOD Director Jonathan Crush and researcher Zack Ahmed is published in the journal African Human Mobility Review. This Special Issue seeks to “enhance our understanding of the nexus between migration and food security in urban Africa in at least three ways: first, it examines how COVID-19 impacted migrant populations in African cities by bringing together a selection of the latest research that centers the experiences of migrants before, during, and after the pandemic. Second, given that more and more refugees in Africa are city-based, it looks at how urban refugees pursue a living outside refugee encampments and with what consequences for building food security. And third, it focuses on the links between food security and the participation of migrants in the informal food sector. As a grouping, the papers seek to transcend the simplistic depiction of migrants as passive victims of the pandemic and instead emphasizes their role as active participants in urban food systems, whether as traders, remittance senders, or informal workers. At the same time, the papers draw attention to the structural barriers that continue to limit migrants’ agency.”
The ten papers in the special issue are authored by MiFOOD partners in Canada, South Africa, Kenya and the UK. They were first presented at the International Symposium on Migration and Mobilities at the University of the Western Cape in October 2023, organized by the Migration and Mobilities Interdisciplinary Collective in Africa (MMICA); the Migration and Food Security in the Global South (MiFOOD) Network; the Urban Sanctuary, Migrant Solidarity and Hospitality in Global Perspective (SOLI*CITY); and the African Union.
AHMR is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects of human mobility in Africa, including socioeconomic, political, legal, developmental, educational and cultural aspects. Through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence-based research papers, AHMR provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of current migration trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. AHMR is jointly owned by the Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in Africa (SIHMA) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
