Chapter 1 tackles ‘foreigners’ defined as such on the basis of their birthplace, as recorded in naval crew musters. Statistical analysis of a sample of 4,392 seamen who served in extra-European stations shows that the proportion of foreign-born men rose between the beginning and the end of the French Wars, likely reflecting the increased demand for manpower. Nearly half of them came not from British imperial or ex-imperial territories, but from continental Europe. Questioning the meaningfulness of categorisations by birthplace, however, the chapter also deploys them as a working hypothesis. The results show that Irish-born, rather than foreign-born, seamen displayed the most distinctive demographic patterns, being on average the oldest but disproportionately employed as ‘landsmen’ – the least skilled and lowest-paid rating. Being born abroad affected the likelihood of promotion to petty officer, and in some cases to able seaman, but it otherwise mattered little in determining a man’s position aboard. Rating was also independent of cultural capital, crudely measured through estimated group numeracy. Overall, a line sharply drawn between the men born in the British Isles and Ireland and those born abroad is a relatively poor predictor of demographic or employment differences.

Chapter 2 employs the unique backstories of respondents interviewed for this book to begin to identify the twenty-first century features of Liberia’s political economy of belonging. It demonstrates that contemporary constructions of Liberian citizenship are part of a continuum—moving from passive, identity-based citizenship emphasising rights and entitlements (and based on birthplace, bloodline, and blackness) to more active, practice-based citizenship privileging duties and responsibilities—thereby transcending the legal definition enshrined in the country’s 1973 Aliens and Nationality Law and 1986 Constitution at least until mid-December 2019. While homeland Liberians embody citizenship practices that are domestically rooted and territorially confined to Liberia, diasporas and returnees engage in transnational pursuits that attempt to positively alter citizen-citizen and government-citizen relations abroad and within Liberia. The chapter also shows that relations between the Liberian government and diasporas have been strengthened or weakened depending on the levels of engagement of embassies and the immigration status of nationals abroad. Whereas the homeland state provided limited to no privileges/protections to nationals abroad in London, Washington, Freetown, and Accra, thus shirking its role in the political economy of belonging, Liberians abroad implied that they had more meaningfully fulfilled duties/obligations through their varied individual and collective efforts.