Psychosocial Experiences of African Migrants in Six European Countries

This open access book provides an empirical account of the psychological and social experiences of 3500 African migrants to 6 European countries: Germany, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, France, and the UK. It discusses the psychosocial motivations for migration from Africa, who migrates where, and stressful pre- and post-migration factors affecting the social and psychological wellbeing of migrants. The book also includes a detailed exploration of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) among African migrants. Addressing and offering solutions to pre- and post-migration problems in Africa and Europe as well as the problems associated with the perilous journeys involved, this unique study is a must-read for anyone interested in cross-cultural psychology and social science, and particularly in migration and mental health.

Erhabor Idemudia, PhD, is full Professor of Research and Clinical Psychology at the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, North-West University (Mafikeng Campus), South Africa. He was previously the Head and Subject Chair, Department of Psychology, at the same university. Professor Idemudia has a BSc (Psychology), MSc and PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is a National Research Foundation (South Africa) rated established researcher/scientist in South Africa and a 2015/2016 recipient of the Georg-Forster Life-Time Achievement Award in research for senior professors from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany. He is also an Alexander Humboldt Fellow, Germany (since 2003), Leventis Fellow, UK, Salzburg Fellow, Austria, among others. He is currently the General Secretary and Registrar of Membership, World Council for Psychotherapy (African Chapter) and member of the Board of the World Council for Psychotherapy. He is anAssociate Editor of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, South Africa amongst others, and serves as external examiner to several universities in Africa, Europe and North America. He has taught and done research at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, University of London, UK, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany, the University of Namibia, Windhoek, University of Limpopo, South Africa, and North-West University, South Africa. Professor Idemudia has over 200 articles and book chapters in peer-reviewed journals and books. He is the author (with Klaus Boehnke) of I’m an alien in Deutschland: A quantitative mental health case study of African Immigrants in Germany (2010).

Klaus Boehnke is Professor of Social Science Methodology at Jacobs University, Bremen and the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS). He also co-heads the International Laboratory for Sociocultural Research at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. He received hisPhD in psychology from Berlin University of Technology in 1985 and has held appointments at the Free University of Berlin, the Australian National University, Chemnitz University of Technology, the University of Toronto, and the National University of Singapore. Between 2007 and 2017, he was the First Vice Dean of BIGSSS and co-coordinated two successful proposals for the funding of BIGSSS in the Excellence Initiative of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). He is the President of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP, 2018-2020). Building upon a strong background in social science methodology, Klaus Boehnke engages in political socialization research. He has published on a great variety of socialization research topics from varying disciplinary perspectives, ranging from educational and personality psychology, political psychology and sociology to media studies and criminology, in leading English-language journals, including Science, the American Journal of Sociology, the Journal of Personality, and the Journal of Marriage and Family, as well as in all leading German social science journals.