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REPRESENTATIONS OF TRAUMA IN AFRICAN MIGRANT FICTION
Published 2021-12Subjects: “…African migrant fiction…”
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Self and Culture in Nigerian Migrant and Travel Ethno-Autobiographical Poetry in English
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Page will reload when a filter is selected or excluded.- African migrant fiction 1 results 1
- African migrant fiction, which recreates characters’ experiences at home and abroad, is increasingly preoccupied with the representation of dystopian realities. Critical appraisals of the fiction have largely focused on the representation of varied mobilities – migration, exile, transnationalism and afropolitanism – without adequate attention to the depiction of migrant characters’ experiences of traumatic stress, despite its ample representation in the fiction. This study was, therefore, designed to examine the recreation of trauma and characters’ responses to traumatic stress in selected African migrant fiction with a view to establishing that traumatic experiences are not limited to characters’ natal homes. Homi Bhabha’s model of the Postcolonial Theory and Cathy Caruth’s and Judith Herman’s models of Trauma Theory, served as the framework. The interpretative design was used. Ali Farah’s Little Mother (LM), Laila Lalami’s Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (HODP), Ben Jelloun’s Leaving Tangier (LT), Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street (OBSS), Alain Mabanckou’s Blue White Red (BWR), Brian Chikwava’s Harare North (HN), Fatou Diome’s The Belly of the Atlantic (TBA), and Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (WNNN) were purposively selected for their depiction of loss, trauma and suffering. The novels were subjected to critical analysis. Trauma in the novels is doubled-edged, aligning with the dominant estimation of trauma as a double wound. Traumatogenic contexts and events in the postcolony as well as in the diaspora dominate the novels. Pre-migration stressors such as unemployment, poverty and sexual assault characterise the postcolony in LT, OBSS, HODP and TBA; while displacement, deprivation and violence abound in WNNN, HN, LM and BWR, all leading to characters’ experience of Continuous Traumatic Stress. Characters’ response to pre-migration stressors in all the novels is flight. Repetitively traumatised by oppressive poverty, displacement and the inconsistencies that define life in the postcolony, the characters fled their fatherland for the West through legitimate and illegitimate routes. In the diaspora, post-migration stressors are activated by characters’ experiences of disillusionment, racism, joblessness, physical and mental assaults, unhomeliness, the trauma of a paperless existence and the perpetual fear of police brutality. Characters’ responses to post-migration stressors range from developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to committing suicide. Azel in LT and the nameless protagonist in HN experience dissolution of self and suffer from PTSD. In WNNN and LM, Tshaka Zulu, Uncle Kojo and Axad suffer from mental illnesses, while Moussa in TBA commits suicide. However, characters like Massala-Massala in BWR, Aunt Fostalina and Darling in WNNN, Faten in HODP and Efe, Ama and Joyce in OBSS largely display resilience in the face of trauma. There is recurring adoption of multiple narrative voices, symbolism and journey motif in OBSS, LM, HODP and HN, while irony and traumatic realism are employed in LT, WNNN, TBA and BWR. Migrant characters’ precarious, liminal and subaltern existence, both at home and abroad, bears witness to trauma’s mobility across space and time in African migrant fiction. This destabilises the hegemonic conception of the West as the Promised Land. 1 results 1
- Ethno-autobiographical poetry is a culturally constituted autobiographical poetry. Due to its subjectivity, it is regarded by critics as an unreliable construction of social history. Consequently, previous researches consider ethno-autobiographical poetry as essentially self-aggrandising, neglecting its form as a unique blend of both self and culture. Therefore, this study explored the cultural constitution of selected Nigerian migrant and travel literary ethno-autobiographical poetry, in terms of racism, ethos, and space, with a view to establishing its features as a source of social history. The diachronic perspective of the Genre Theory, which emphasises the historical and dynamic function and features of a genre, is adopted to conceptualise autobiography as ethno-autobiography. The historico-biographical method was used to explore how self and culture are constructed in four collections of purposively selected Nigerian migrant autobiographical poems: Tanure Ojaide‘s When it No Longer Matters Where You Live (No Longer Matters), Femi Oyebode‘s Master of the Leopard Hunt (Master), Olu Oguibe‘s Songs of Exile, Uche Nduka‘s The Bremen Poems, and two collections of poetic travelogues: Odia Ofeimun‘s London Letter and Other Poems (London Letter) and Remi Raji‘s Shuttlesongs: America (Shuttlesongs). The texts were subjected to critical textual analysis. Nigerian migrant and travel ethno-autobiographical poetry depicts an interplay of racism, ethos, and space in the authors‘ self construction. In Master, racism is portrayed in the persona‘s treatment as a racial ‗Other‘; ethos is depicted in the appropriation of Benin mythical art and ancestral beliefs as identity schema and for interrogating the episteme of Euro-American geo-space. Songs of Exile depicts racism in the persona‘s hybridity and identity crisis, but ethos in the conflict between his African imagination and Americans‘ individualistic lifestyle, which results from his encounter with the geo-cultural space of exile as a post-colonial subject. The Bremen Poems relates the persona‘s loneliness and vulnerability as a racial outsider, whereas ethos is depicted in his conflicting feelings of nostalgia for the homeland and love for the exilic space of Bremen as a city of refuge. In No Longer Matters, exile is associated with racial discrimination, individualism and deceptive glamour while the homeland is portrayed as oppressive and squalid resulting in the persona‘s conclusion that neither geo-space is conducive for self realisation. In London Letter, Lagos and London are depicted as racially and socially stratified and filthy; ethos is portrayed in the persona‘s queries of Nigerian emigrants‘ Eurocentric disposition and their flamboyant lifestyles as citizens and immigrants within the geo-cultural spaces of Lagos and London respectively. In Shuttlesongs, racism is portrayed in the historic slave trade and racial discrimination occluded by modern America‘s glamour while ethos is depicted in America‘s liberal democracy, human rights, and African American cultural values; the persona encountered these during visits to America‘s historic sites and geo-cultural spaces. The cultural constitution of selected Nigerian migrant and travel literary ethnoautobiographical poetry, in terms of racism, ethos, and space, is composed, respectively, of alterity, identity construction and epistemological orientation, and trans-spatiality. These features demonstrate ethno-autobiography‘s form as an expression of self and culture within the context of social history 1 results 1
- Ethno-autobiography 1 results 1
- Nigerian migrant and travel poetry 1 results 1
- Post-migration stressor 1 results 1
- Pre-migration stressor 1 results 1
- Self 1 results 1
- Social history 1 results 1
- Space 1 results 1
- Traumatic stress 1 results 1
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