ABSTRACT
Individuals are increasingly crossing borders in search of work and opportunities for self-growth. Many do so voluntarily, driven by a wish to transcend the limits of home and with the sometimes vague intent and possibility of return. Such individuals are not necessarily fleeing trauma, nor is it impossible for many of them to return. Within this population is a subset of peripatetic Africana workers, who define home as wherever they are and have developed healthy ways of managing the ambivalence that comes from a feeling of not having a fixed sense of home. Even when they still identify a particular home country, they experience it as not satisfying all their needs for self-development. To function effectively, they develop what I term adaptive ambivalence. This speaks to their ability to live in spaces that promotes certain aspects of self-development; what the Chinese refer to broadly as suzhi. At the same time, such places have constraints that require the individual to eat bitterness; to engage in chiku. Africana workers in China are constantly calibrating risk versus reward with regard to staying in a space that is ambivalent about their presence but that satisfies some of their desire for self-development.
