QUEST FOR AN AFRICAN IDENTITY IN BUCHI EMECHETA’S THE NEW TRIBE

Résumé de l'article

Slavery and colonisation have entailed horrible consequences for Africans. Thus, some of them were forced to leave their homelands to Europe and America. The sequel to this separation from their homes is the loss of their former identity; due to a difficult adoption of the new culture once in the host countries. Unable to adapt to a culture which most the time they do not understand, some of them do not hesitate to search for their original African identity. Emecheta’s fiction, The New Tribe deals with a Nigerian young boy’s quest for this African identity in a white community where he seems to be lost because of his skin colour. Using the postcolonial criticism as a theoretical tool for the research, we will examine the concepts of deracination, hybridity, racism to head for the concept of afropolitanism as it is perceived in Emechet’s novel.

POST-MIGRATION BRITISH LITERATURE: AN ANALYSIS OF SPACE AND HYBRIDITY IN HANIF KUREISHI’S THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA (1990)

Résumé de l'article

Black British literature is the space of representation of the migratory flow. It analyses the effect of emigration on literary productions. The present study is an investigation on the second generation of writers with the case of Hanif Kureishi, a writer from the Indian diaspora born in the United Kingdom, who portrays the conditions of Indian immigrants in England. It seeks to scrutinize The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) and takes as a starting two different axes based on the works of Homi Bhabha and John Searle. Consequently, Bhabha’s notion of hybridity serves as a theoretical tool to reveal Kureishi’s strategy to minimize the border between the native and the host culture and to resolve diasporic difficulties. John Searle’s illocutionary acts are also used to analyze the discourse of the hybrid characters as well as the impact of space in the creation of a new identity.

THE AFRICAN WOMEN IN THE ELSEWHERE: AN AFROPOLITAN ANALYSIS OF DARKO’S BEYOND THE HORIZON AND WALKER’S POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY

Résumé de l'article

Globalization catalyses the proliferation of transnational literature across disciplines and the contemporary African and African-American novels are no exception. They develop Afropolitan topics in which emerge new kinds of migrating populations composed of people whose patterns of life encompass both their host and home societies. Their lives cut across national boundaries and bring several societies into a single social field. The article analyses two transnational novels: Beyond the Horizon (1991) written by the Ghanaian novelist Amma Darko, and Possessing the Secret of Joy (2009) written by the African-American novelist Alice Walker. It argues that the African migrant women in the elsewhere (African and African-American novels) overcome oppressions to become Afropolitans. Comparing the two novels through the lens of Afropolitan theory, the article finds out that from being multiple oppressed subjects, the African migrant women find homeliness in the host countries.

INTRACONTINENTAL MIGRATION AND THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT: A STUDY OF NOVIOLET BULAWAYO’S WE NEED NEW NAMES

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This paper intends to demonstrate the way movements across national borders within Africa foster the development of the continent. It explores NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel We Need New Names and brings out how the author has imagined such development capacity in the construction of the narrative. The novel, mainly, tells about Africans’ immigration towards western worlds, such as the United States of America and Britain. However, in the process of telling the events, the narrator subtly gives indications pertaining to African intracontinental migration. In this regard, this paper considers characters’ cross-border movements within Africa and uses them as a means of development. This analysis will be achieved based on the theory of narratology. Actually, it lays emphasis on characters, spaces and events to relate migration and continental development.

FROM VIRTUAL MIGRATION TO GLOBALIZATION: THE PRESENCE OF THE ELSEWHERE IN THE HERE IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK AND AMERICANAH.

Résumé de l'article

This study analyses the issue of the connection between virtual migration and globalization in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s literary works, namely The Thing Around Your Neck (2009) and Americanah (2013). Focused on postocolonial theoretical approach, precisely on Bill Ashcroft and his peers’ conception on globalism, it demonstrates that virtual migration leads African people to globalization. In this vein, that current phenomenon is used as a gun by the excolonised to break-down the barriers between their peripheral position and the coloniser’s central position.

NARRATING THE MULTIFORM IDENTITY: MIGRATION AND COSMOPOLITANISM IN HELON HABILA’S TRAVELLERS

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This article explores the growing phenomenon of migration of people from former colonies to European countries. The tremendous economic and technological development, in addition to the projected western humanism and generosity constitute the main drives of this massive influx of migrants into Europe. The study is based on Helon Habila’s Travellers (2019), which appears as a postcolonial text that fictionalizes the stories of some Black and Arab migrants who succeed to cross the European borders. In this novel of the category of migrant literature, the narrative puts side by side the migrants’ sad experiences and the supposed humanism promoted through the European concept of cosmopolitanism. In so doing, the author tackles the questions of identity and aspects of racism in the migration policy and practices of European countries.

BREXIT AND THE DIALECTIC OF THE EUROPEAN SPACE AND IDENTITY IN ANDREW MARR’S HEAD OF STATE

Résumé de l'article

This paper examines the crisis of a common European identity in Andrew Marr’s novel, Head of State. Drawing on Karl Marx’s belief that life is materialistic; the article explores how Britain’s socio-economic crisis triggers the Britons’ animosity toward a common European socio-political identity. Brexit referendum emerged at a moment of economic recession leading to socio-political tensions between the Europhiles and the Eurosceptics in Britain and the European countries. In considering these, the article analyses Marr’s fiction as it echoes British social and political struggles within the European Union project. Specifically, the paper explores how the socio-economic deterioration of the country perpetuates a rejection of a common European political space. This allows for a more materialistic reading of contradictions inside the British state-territory to sort out Brexit vote as dialectical struggles between opposing political economic forces in Marr’s fiction.

FOSTER CHILDREN’S IDENTITY ISSUE IN THE CONTEXT OF IMMIGRATION: A CASE STUDY OF THE NEW TRIBE BY BUCHI EMECHETA

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This paper analyses a protagonist’s life whose membership inside his family seems to call in question his genuine identity for he is a foster child. This one is stigmatised because of his skin colour and hardly achieves to blossom within society. The goal is to depict the identity crisis experienced by him, how that identity crisis impacted his familial and social integration, and finally how immigration imposed itself to this afro-English boy as solution to clear away all doubts about his personality. With Postcolonial criticism, a deep analysis of foster children’s identity issue in the context of immigration is achieved through the concepts of Adopt, Adapt, and Adept to examine hybridity and cultural polyvalency of the protagonist. Immigration provided a mixed outcome and led to realize the acceptance of the protagonist current identity

BLURRING IDENTITY AND BOUNDARY: CASE STUDY OF JAMES WELCH’S WINTER IN THE BLOOD

Résumé de l'article

This article explores identity and boundary issues in Native American works of fiction. It focusses on James Phillip Welch’s Winter in the Blood analyzing the central character’s shuffling between Native Americans’ and Whites’ cultures. By means of a postmodern analysis, this article highlights the notions of identity and boundary acquisition, showing on the one hand traditional or cultural identity, and on the other hand, the process of blurring lines between human beings. It comes to the conclusions that boundaries are blurred by means of physical and mental journeys, spirituality and humanism. It also concludes that identity is mutative.

HE PROCESS OF IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION: A STUDY OF BARACK OBAMA’S DREAM FROM MY FATHER

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RE-VISUALIZING FEMALE IDENTITIES IN AFRICAN AND WESTERN SPACES IN DARKO’S BEYOND THE HORIZON AND UNIGWE’S ON BLACK SISTERS’ STREET

Résumé de l'article

The current paper re-visualizes female identities in African and western spaces in Darko’s Beyond the Horizon and Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street. It explores African women’s lives in Africa and in the West. The objective of this study is to determine that African women’s identity is impacted by some migratory experiences like sexuality. This article is theoretically framed by Postcolonial Feminism. The use of this theory helps conclude that in addition to race and gender, sexuality is revealed in the two novels understudy as symbol of the identity of African female immigrants. The work is subdivided into two sections: the first one sheds light on women’s identity in traditional Africa; afterwards, women’s identity is analyzed from their sexual experiences in the West.

COLONIALISM AND BLASPHEMED RACIALIZATION IN JOHN MAXWELL COETZEE’S WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS

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This research investigates the postcolonial concept of colonialism and blasphemed racialization in Waiting for the Barbarians by John Maxwell Coetzee. It analyzes the fractured relation between Blacks and Whites during colonization. In fact, colonial era has favored the domination of Whites over Blacks resulting in the blasphemy of Africans’ race and culture. Coetzee intends to demonstrate that colonialism with its discourse and heritage has settled a clear distinction between both races. In so doing, this situation has occasioned Blacks’ misrepresentation in both their culture and race at the profit of Whites. Standing on postcolonial theory, the study reaches the point that John Maxwell Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians is a narrative of colonialism and blasphemed racialization.

MIGRATION AND IDENTITY (RE)CONSTRUCTION: THE SHAPING OF IDENTITY IN ERNEST J. GAINES’ CATHERINE CARMIER

Résumé de l'article

Grounded on deconstruction, this paper stresses on the changes in migrants’ identity. It assesses the ambivalent impacts of migration on identity (re)formation in Catherine Carmier. For a community that considers migration as a quest for education and employment to improve its life conditions in the plantation, migration may have non expected effects on the identity of characters. They encompass emotional detachment, acculturation, the loss of faith and identity crisis. These facets of the migrant identity set a mood of tensions within the black community. However, migration may foster appraisive identity features. The migrant self-assertiveness informs the way he perceives himself. Migration instills progressive traits on the individual’s identity through interracial love transgression, political commitment, critical awareness, and empowerment. Identity (re)construction often fosters interracial tensions between black and creole people.

MEDIAS AND THE IMMIGRANT’S CULTURAL METAPHORSIS IN NOVIOLET BULAWAYO’S WE NEED NEW NAMES

Résumé de l'article

The objective of this study is to highlight the process of cultural alienation of the migrants’ subjects through Medias in Bulawayo’s We Need New Names. Indeed, like other immigrants’ characters, the protagonist Darling is culturally upset when she arrives in the host society and discovers other values different from those of her home country. In the process of her interaction with Western culture, a “third culture” (Bhabha, 1994) emerges, one that gradually leads to her deculturation. Noticeably, the novel shows that the main factor of the immigrant’s cultural mutation is connected to the Medias that play the role of cultural metamorphosis.

THE REPRESENTATION OF PANA-AFRICANISM IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS AND CHIKA UNIGWE’S NIGHT DANCER

Résumé de l'article

One of the most recurrent concerns of African writers is the identity crisis brought about by colonial education and the political system implemented through African administrations and institutions. African novelists use their literary works to decry the wrongs that impede the development of their postcolonial societies. They, actually, use their novels as bullets to fight against colonial ill-doings in order to restore African identity. In this respect, this study essentially focuses on both Nigerian Chika Unigwe’s Night Dancer and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus to highlight how the selected authors value African cultures. The theory for implementing this research is the Afrocentric approach which stands as an important scanner to analyze the selected works. As objectives, the critical study will discuss African traditional religion and also analyze African celebrations. In sum, this research paper points out how the identity crisis has been engendered by colonization.

RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AND IMPEDIMENT: A SURVEY OF ACHEBE’S TRILOGLY

Résumé de l'article

religion is not a gift from our parents but a legacy to our children. As such it must be preserved and be transmitted duly from a generation to another. Unfortunately, religion is being deprived from its legendary values structured around dialogue, peace, love and tolerance. Our paper is a try to highlight religious dialogue and its impediment through the Trilogy by Chinua Achebe by focusing on the one hand, on major illustrations of religious dialogue; by underlining on the other hand, some obstacles to this very religious dialogue due to many socio religious-bound factors and aspects.

RETHINKING AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS’ IDENTITY: AFROPOLITANISM IN TEJU COLE’S OPEN CITY AND TAIYE SELASI’S GHANA MUST GO

Résumé de l'article

The representation of the postcolonial African identity has always been the concern of African creative writers and scholars. For decades, Afro-pessimism and postcolonial Manicheanism have been paradigms that prevail in the African literary landscape. This paper seeks to delineate how Afropolitanism attempts to optimistically rethink the African identity outside crises. Postcolonial theory lays the contextual grounds for this analysis with Selasi's “Bye-Bye Babar” (2005) and Mbembe’s “Afropolitanism” (2007). The study of Cole’s and Selasi’s novels first unveils that the cosmopolitan status of Africans is partly due to their search for home as they peregrinate elsewhere to escape the postcolony in their country of origin. Second, the Afropolitans are identified with multiple identities and also multilingual as they are culturally and linguistically hybrids. The paper finally claims that Afropolitanism remains paradoxical for, it reinforces Eurocentrism and lacks political engagement to fight Neo-colonialism for the true liberation of Africa.

A SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH CHOICE AS SECOND MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE

Résumé de l'article

urrently in the world, English is known as the global language with a valuable linguistic asset that has seriously contributed to a country like China’s socio-economic development. The main purpose of this paper is to conduct a sociolinguistic investigation to show that English use as second medium of instruction in Côte d’Ivoire can be socioeconomically advantageous for this multilingual French-speaking country. In the trends of this analysis, our focus will be based on language policy and economics of language theories. From the results of this study, we retain that even if some scholars and linguists do not perceive such a language policy implementation as useful in this country, English language use as second medium of instruction appears as a relevant linguistic asset that can allow this country to benefit from important advantages at diplomatic, educational and economic levels.

ADVERTISING AND IDENTITY RE-CONSTRUCTION: THE CASE OF JUMIA AND DREAM COSMETIC

Résumé de l'article

This research paper investigates the extent to which advertisement contributes to the process of identity re-construction. It explores ideological features in advertising slogans and their effects on consumers. The analysis focuses on lexical and syntactic choices in advertising taglines to sort out the linguistic clues that influence and shape the identity of audience. Using the theory of pragmatic to explore the type of language used in order to establish the interaction between discourse, ideologies and identity reconstruction, the study reveals that the messages in these advertisements do not only describe products, but also convey certain ideologies in order to shape or re-construct consumers’ identities. Referring to a pragmatic analysis, this work shows that the contextual use of some syntactic structures, words and visuals in advertisements re-construct some identity features of consumers.

IDENTITY BORDERS OF LOCUTIONARY ACTS AND ACTIONS in THE VANISHING HALF by BRIT BENNETT

Résumé de l'article

Living in the elsewhere looks like being lock in a place, and it conveys ethnic, social, cultural, racial, national, political, regional, and linguistic identities to those persons. The study of migrants’ identities is a very vast field. Despite the progress of scientific researches on that issue, the topic can be tackled in the sense of migrants’ identities inside the different borders today. But, migrants’ living conditions in borders can actually favor the use of Language to express or deny some identities. Similarly, the selected locutionary acts in ‘The Vanishing Half’, bluntly shows utterances acts denying or affirming migrants’ identities. This analysis is done in the lens of speech act theory. Therefore, the present work aims at showing throughout tangible facts, the performatives actions that influence migrants’ life as well as their identities in the novel. The language is used by characters in such way that it fits with their identities in the context of frontiers. These elements are so closely interwoven that words are inscribed with ideological meanings in emigrants’ mind.