"Half a century after social anthropologist Sir Edward E. Evans-Pritchard introduced the Nuer people - cattle farmers in Sudan - to the global consciousness, they began arriving in the United States as refugees, settling in such cities as Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Nashville, Tennessee, and Saint Paul, Minnesota. In this study of their migration from a war-torn society to North America, Dianna Shandy asks how the diaspora Nuer, especially Nuer-Americans, deal with complex social networks while maintaining their Nuerness." "Assumptions that refugees fleeing to Western countries come from "stone-age" societies do not recognize the ways Africans employ social networks and technology in their quest for better lives for themselves and their families. Shandy argues that flawed representations fail to credit African populations with linkages between "home" and the diaspora, overlooking important realities in how these ties shape the lives of people in both settings. Refugees are not hopeless beneficiaries of the communities who are receiving them, but rather, social actors and active agents in producing culture and shaping their own futures."--BOOK JACKET.