Fixer
Regular price
€29.99
A01=Charles Piot
Author_Charles Piot
Category=JBFH
Category=JHMC
Category=JPVH
diversity visa
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
visa brokers
Product details
- ISBN 9781478003045
- Weight: 318g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 28 Jun 2019
- Publisher: Duke University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In the West African nation of Togo, applying for the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery is a national obsession, with hundreds of thousands of Togolese entering each year. From the street frenzy of the lottery sign-up period and the scramble to raise money for the embassy interview to the gamesmanship of those adding spouses and dependents to their dossiers, the application process is complicated, expensive, and unpredictable. In The Fixer Charles Piot follows Kodjo Nicolas Batema, a Togolese visa broker-known as a “fixer”-as he shepherds his clients through the application and interview process. Relaying the experiences of the fixer, his clients, and embassy officials, Piot captures the ever-evolving cat-and-mouse game between the embassy and the hopeful Togolese as well as the disappointments and successes of lottery winners in the United States. These detailed and compelling stories uniquely illustrate the desire and savviness of migrants as they work to find what they hope will be a better life.
Charles Piot is Professor of Cultural Anthropology and African and African American Studies at Duke University; editor of Doing Development in West Africa: A Reader by and for Undergraduates, also published by Duke University Press; and author of Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa after the Cold War.
