The Postcolonial African Migration to the West as a Desire for Being

In this chapter I argue that there is something more besides poverty, political insecurity, or climate change that pushes postcolonial Africans to migrate to the West. I examine postcolonial migration from Africa to the West from a mimetic perspective against the background of the legacies of slavery and colonization. Postcolonial migration from Africa to the West is caused primarily by the desire for belonging and being by imitating the West, and only secondarily and epiphenomenally a spatial movement from Africa to the West. Paradoxically, the postcolonial African desire for being depends not on detachment from the former slaveholders and colonizers but on the imitation of their lifestyle and possibly by living together with them. This desire for being through imitation is a denied desire.