African Migration Narratives: Politics, Race, and Space

by Cajetan Iheka (Editor), Jack Taylor (Editor)

Overview

Examines the representations of migration in African literature, film, and other visual media, with an eye to the stylistic features of these works as well as their contributions to debates on migration

This essay collection examines the representations of migration in African literature, film, and other visual media. Inspired by the proliferation of texts focused on this theme and the ongoing migration crises, essays in the volume probe the ways in which African cultural productions shape and are shaped by the migration debates, the contributions these productions make to an understanding of globalization, and the stylistic features of the works. The texts analyzed here include important recent writings and films that have yet to receive considerable scholarly attention, by artists such as Chimamanda Adichie, Teju Cole, Leila Aboulela, Noo Saro-Wiwa, and Marzek Allouache.

Current scholarship on migration largely focuses on the journey from Third World spaces to the First World, thereby radically limiting our understanding of migratory flows. This project works against this lopsided analysis ofmigration and considers narratives of return as central to migratory flows. The book also invests in underanalyzed and underrepresented diasporas on the continent including the Lusophone and Indian diasporas. Unlike much scholarship on migration in African cultural studies, which tends to focus primarily on a genre (literature), a region, or a specific language, the current book emphasizes Africa's geographical and linguistic diversity by being attentive to Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone areas, as well as an array of texts encompassing various genres.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580469340
Publisher:	BOYDELL & BREWER INC
Publication date:	11/26/2018
Series:	ISSN , #81
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

CAJETAN IHEKA is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Alabama.

JACK TAYLOR is Associate Professor of English at the University of Hawaii-Mānoa.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Paradigm Shift: The Migration Turn in African Cultural Productions
Harragas, Global Subjects, and Failed Deterritorializations: The Tragedies of Illegal Mediterranean Crossings in Maghrebi Cinema
Nollywood Comedies and Visa Lotteries: Welfare States, Borders, and Migration as Random Invitation
Accented Cinema: Chineze Anyaene's Ije: The Journey
Migrations and Representations: The Cinema by the Griot Dani Kouyaté
Mamiwata, Migrations, and Miscegenation: Transculturalism in Mia Couto, José Agualusa, and Germano Almeida
Poor Migrant: Poverty and Striving in Nadine Gordimer's July's People and The Pickup
(Re-)imaging Blackness : The Visual Landscapes of El Carmen, a Peruvian District
Reading Space, Subjectivity, and Form in the Twenty-First Century Narrative of Return
Looking for Transwonderland: Noo Saro-Wiwa's Migration of the Heart
The Literary Circulation of Teju Cole's Every Day Is for the Thief
Speculative Migration and the Project of Futurity in Sylvestre Amoussou's Africa Paradis
Monkeys from Hell, Toubabs in Africa
Mapping (Sacred) Space in Leila Aboulela's Fiction
Voice of the Cosmopolitan Nomad
Esiaba Irobi: Poetry at the Margins
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Cajetan Iheka and Jack Taylor's edited collection is a refreshing addition to the scholarship on African migration. Not only does it privilege and represent the dynamics of African migration across different countries in Africa, through its representation of migration from different cultural productions, it emphasizes that to adequately understand an issue that has seemingly defined a people, all systems and genres of cultural production and means of self-representation should be assessed.

AFRICAN STUDIES QUARTERLY

It is a point that aptly summarizes the diversity of insightful and rich scholarship on display within African Migration Narratives, a work whose contribution to the fields of African studies, migration studies, and literary studies is invaluable in a time when, in the words of the collection's editors Iheka and Taylor, 'the world faces not a crisis in immigration, but a crisis in our capacity to offer hospitality.

AFRICA IS A COUNTRY

Conscious of the genealogy of migration studies, African Migration Narratives sees itself as a descendant that concentrates on what is now regarded as the new African diaspora. In scope and in analytic rigor, it is indeed a worthy addition to existing studies, unveiling new voices and arts and defining the current state of African diasporic cultural production.

Research in African Literatures

In scope and in analytic rigor, it is indeed a worthy addition to existing studies, unveiling new voices and arts and defining the current state of African diasporic cultural production.

RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITERATURES

Iheka and Taylor's volume presents a broad and complex picture of African migration and, more importantly, promotes examinations of work that showcases the complexity of race relations in post-colonial societies and humanized images of migrants.

JOURNAL OF REFUGEE STUDIES

African Migration Narratives carefully differentiates the recent proliferation of migrant writing from earlier modes of expression. The result is a collection of rich essays on important contemporary writers and filmmakers. The collection is timely, considering the migrant crises that concern Africa and its diaspora in significant ways. While it uses some well-known twenty-first century writers, the book also brings to the foreground incredibly creative artists that have largely been ignored in African studies.

Evan Mwangi

African Migration Narratives carefully differentiates the recent proliferation of migrant writing from earlier modes of expression. The result is a collection of rich essays on important contemporary writers and filmmakers. The collection is timely, considering the migrant crises that concern Africa and its diaspora in significant ways. While it uses some well-known twenty-first century writers, the book also brings to the foreground incredibly creative artists that have largely been ignored in African studies. --Evan Mwangi, Northwestern University

From the Publisher