Migration and social class in Africa: Class-making projects in translocal social fields

Increasing interest in the middle class in Africa and the Global South has prompted new discussions of social class since 2010; however, this literature does not adequately theo-rize migration, despite the role that global flows play in cul-tivating class aspirations. Migration complicates the concept of social class as a stable identity, in that migrants usually have multiple class statuses across their lifetime and in dif-ferent social fields and geographic locations. Furthermore, class remains undertheorized within the literature on African migration and migration in general, despite the fact that class-making projects are central to migrants within, into, and out of Africa. The introduction to this special issue con-tends that migration and social class should be considered together.