BOOK REVIEW: Children on the Move in Africa: Past & Present Experiences of Migration. Suffolk: James Currey, 2016. vii + 255 pp. List of Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $80.00. Cloth. ISBN: 9781847011381 .

Razy Elodie. and Rodet Marie., eds. Children on the Move in Africa: Past & Present Experiences of Migration. Suffolk: James Currey, 2016. vii + 255 pp. List of Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $80.00. Cloth. ISBN: 9781847011381.

Children on the Move in Africa contributes to the increasing corpus of literature that investigates childhood, and specifically childhood migration, in Africa. Migration is understood in this edited volume as any change of residence, ranging from local to international, that occurs outside a child’s community, which can be temporary or permanent (2). The authors complicate the notion long held by international development agencies that childhood migration is characterized by victimhood as children are trafficked across communities for the purpose of physical and sexual exploitation as slaves, laborers, soldiers, or sex workers, or a child migrant’s inherent vulnerability as orphan, street child, refugee, or witch (4).

They also contest counter-narratives that portray children as sole agents who break away from adults and kinship ties in search of independence and economic and social mobility. Instead, they present a nuanced perspective of the child migrant who contributes to the continuity of kinship networks through migration. While these children achieve a certain amount of agency and are able to adapt cultural, political, and religious structures to attain their goals, their position as juniors, who largely rely on adults for sustenance and support, renders them susceptible to exploitation and abuse. The authors question the very notion of childhood as a matter of biological fact and reassert the long-held perspective by researchers of Africa that childhood on the...