ABSTRACT
Migration over the years has become a recurrent theme in
contemporary African literature. Existing studies on migration have focused
mainly on the female gender in discourses of migration and gender. Literatures
on gender and migration have evaded critical study of the experiences of both males
and females. This study therefore investigated the experiences of both sexes in
migration narratives.
A qualitative approach was used in this study. This
entailed in-depth analysis of the selected texts from the four regions of
Africa: North, South, East and West. To create the desired gender balance, two
of the authors are male while two are females. Postcolonialism and
Postmodernism theories were employed in the analysis of the texts.
Postcolonialism was applied in the analysis of the characters’ interactions
with one another while Postmodernism was used in the analysis of the characters
as it relates to the new society they find themselves.
This study revealed that the male characters have
their masculine ego subdued in the diaspora while female migrants experience
freedom to pursue and actualize their dreams despite initial challenges. In The Beautiful Thing that Heaven Bears, Sepha
becomes timid and suffers inferiority complex in his relationship with Judith.
In Brooklyn Height, Hend resists all
sexual advances, sticks to her moral standing and eventually achieves her
dreams. Effects of migration include distrust and breakdown of traditional
African communal life. In A Squatter’s
Tale, Obi distrusts Happiness when he finds out that Happiness lied to him
about the fees for the papers. Obi also suffers rejection from Ego who
ordinarily would have accommodated him if they were to be in Nigeria. Coping
and survival strategies adopted by Africans in diaspora include aping American
looks and accent; procurement of fake documents; and contract marriages. In We Need New Names, Fostalina adopts
American outlooks and appearances. She changes her meal and exercises in-front
of the television to become slim like the American women. Role reversal occurs
socially and in gender relationships. In Beautiful
Thing that Heaven Bears, Berhane who had a driver driving him back in
Ethopia, became a taxi driver in America and Sepha, the very vocal man, lost
his manliness to Judith as she played the “man” in their short lived romance.
The study concluded that postcolonial
disillusionment affects migrants and their gendered relations. It recommended
that migrants should maintain their traditional communal living ethos even in
diaspora, they should maintain their identities, work on the decolonisation of
their minds.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background
to the Study
Due to the volatility in the political terrain in
African states, migration of the citizenry has been on the increase daring all
odds just to escape from political violence and victimisation and also seeking
for greener pastures. Constantly, African writers have narrated their
experiences and memoirs alike. Some of such memoirs are based on personal
experiences of the writers while others are either fiction or observations of
the writes. In all, migration remains a recurrent theme in the current literary
circle and has been broadened with close relation to other fields and areas of
interest such as gender, child development and so on.
In the politics and governance of migration, migrants are studied
in the new nations of settlement they occupy. However, in according preferences
and conditions of service and living, migrants are assessed based on gender.
There are therefore militating factors in the life of the immigrant that arise
as a result of gender politicking and gender roles. The migrant narrative is
arguably one of the best ways to understand these influences. According to
Marita Eastmond (2007;248), “Placed in their wider socio-political and cultural
contexts, stories can provide insights into how forced migrants seek to make
sense of displacement and violence, re-establish identity in ruptured life
courses and communities, or bear witness to violence and repression”. The
effects of gender politicking further come into play in the making of decisions
“in the workplaces of immigrants, in neoliberal or welfare state policies
towards migration or foreign-born populations, in diasporas, and even in the
capitalist world system” (Donato et al. 2006: 6) as well as other areas
involving the migrant.
Migrant narratives usually focus on international migration and the
ordeal of the migrant seeking for a better self or a better tomorrow in
countries other than theirs. And the narrative perspective is usually the
scenario whereby the migrant writer that engages extensively in the literary
preoccupation of telling migrant stories is a migrant or have been a migrant at
one point in life. Therefore it is safe to say that the migrant writer usually
writes from experience, that is, in fictionalising stories he or she may have
witnessed while a migrant. So in effect, a study of migrant narratives reflects
the reality of the migrant’s new milieu.
An understanding of what it is to be an international migrant is
essential. In the apt description by Mary Chamberlain (1998):
International
migrants are by definition global people whose horizons and allegiances,
education and enterprise, family and friendship are both portable and elastic.
What, finally, unsettles about international migration is that it
internationalizes the nation-state and globalizes identity. Fluidity, not
fixity, characterizes the migrant, contemporary nomads and cultural gypsies.
The effect of international migration internationalizing the
nation-state according to Yurick (1995:205) is that “Newly emerging states had
to make political choices upon which all aspects of national and economic
survival depended and to position their autonomy not merely within a regional
perspective, but a global one.” The outcome of this new global order is that
“trade emerged not as .a precursor to territorial and imperial expansion, or as
an economic lubricant but as a display of ideological finery, to sell and
seduce”.
This idea of ‘selling and seducing’ in the type of trade that
largely accommodates the migrant is an offshoot of gender politicking in
effect. The purpose of this research therefore is to examine portrayal of
gendered experiences in African migrant narratives. In view of this, migrant
narratives and “oral histories can tease out ways in which gender differences
impact on, or are impacted by, transnational lives” (Chamberlain &
Leydesdorff 2004:227).
1.2
Statement
of the Problem
Several
decades back, studies on gender and migration has essentially focused on the
female folk. The female migrant has technically been used to imply or connote
gender in gender and migration based researches. Researchers in gender and
migration field had focused more on female migrants owing to the assumption
that women migrate to accompany or reunite with their breadwinners and in other
cases migrate to escape the largely patriarchal society or seeing migration as
another means of securing greener pasture especially for single mothers.
Nonetheless, gender is the biological reality that
there are two sexes. Over time, gender discourses as it relates to migration
has focused more on the female gender and subjugated the experiences of the
male gender in its discourses. This has led to a dearth of critical work on the
real focus of gender migrant experiences as encompassing both sexes. There is
therefore a need to fill this vacuum and examine the entire migration process
as a gendered phenomenon by studying in detail migrant narratives and the
militating effects of gender politicking and gender roles in the lives of all
the migrant characters they present. This study unlike previous researches
focuses on both the male and female gender without downplay on the male
counterpart.
1.3
Objective
of the Study
The main objective of this study is to highlight the
portrayals of gender experiences in selected migrant narratives. The specific
objectives are to:
1.
identify peculiar
experiences of male and female migrant characters as portrayed in the texts;
2.
investigate the effects
of gender politicking in the experiences of identified migrant characters in
the text;
3.
examine the coping and
survival strategies adopted by identified migrant characters and the roles
gender play in this and
4.
identify cases of
gender role reversals in the selected texts
1.4
Research
Questions
The following questions shall guide this research:
1.
What are the peculiar
experiences of male and female migrant characters portrayed in the texts?
2.
What are the effects of
gender politicking on the experiences of identified migrant characters in the
text?
3.
What are the coping and
survival strategies adopted by identified migrants in selected texts and what
roles do gender play in this?
4.
What are the
identifiable cases of gender role reversals in the selected texts?
1.5
Scope of the Study
This study evaluates solely African migrant
experiences. The works analysed are written by African writers who are either
presently domiciled in diaspora or at one point of their lives migrated out of
their country. The texts have been carefully selected to cover the four major
regions in Africa; West, East, North, and Southern parts.
To demonstrate how well a new generation of African
migrant narratives can help to ascertain the effects of gender politicking and
gender roles in the diasporic life of the African migrant, four migrant
narratives were selected for this purpose. They are: Ike Oguine’s The Sqatter’s Tale (2000), Bulawayo
NoViolet’s We Need New Names (2013),
Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Thing That
Heaven Bears (2007), Miral Al-Tahawy’s Brooklyn
Heights (2010). The four titles were written in the 21st
century,
To ensure the desired gender balance, two of the
narratives were authored by male writers (i.e. Ike Oguine and Dinaw Mengestu)
while the other two are female writers (i.e Miral Al-Tahawy and Bulawayo
Noviolet). This selection was purposive to ensure that neither of the genders
is downplayed in this research work.
1.6
Significance
of the Study
Pessar (2006: 55) asserts that human migration is a gendered
phenomenon. To understand the ordeal of the migrant, it is imperative to begin
from the foundation by understanding the type of treatment and situation meted
out to the migrant on the basis of gender. As indicated by Elaine Bauer and
Paul Thompson (2004:334), “Migration and gender are two areas in which oral
history and life story evidence has been recognised as having a special
potential”. Since migrant narratives reflect the day-to-day experiences of the
migrant as written from experience, this study therefore helps in elucidating
certain themes that can be found in narratives about gender. In addition to
this, it makes a strong case for the premise that gender truly matters in
migration studies. “Gender matters. [Therefore,] To incorporate gender in
migration research is not to “privilege” it but to accord it the explanatory
power it merits” (Mahler and Pessar 2006:52). And since gender in migration has
been downplayed in situations where only the female migrant is analysed, this
study add to the body of literatures where both the male and female migrant is
analysed on equal basis.
1.7
Methodology
This study is text-based inclined with a textual
analysis of the primary texts. Secondary texts of renowned scholars shall
however be used to corroborate or support some of the views made inside the research.
These materials were sourced from journals as well as online and print
materials.
The study is also qualitative. It comparatively studies the
characters presented in the texts focusing on their roles and whether or not
migration has subdued the roles they play in their home countries. The study
will also use postmodernism and post-colonialism to analyse the life of
migrants as it relates to the intrinsic politicking gender differences brings
out in the diaspora. Postmodernism will be used to highlight the changes in
gender roles in the diaspora while post-colonialism will be used to comparatively
analyse the effects of gender politicking on migrants who are now in an
environment where their cultural values of a largely patriarchal society is
subdued.
1.7.1
Justification
for the Choice of Texts Used
Of the three genre of literature, narratives captures best in
details the experiences of migrants hence the choice of narratives for this
research. The primary texts for this research include:Ike Oguine’s Squatter’s Tale (2000), Dinaw Mengestu’s
The Beautiful Thing That Heaven Bears (2007),
Miral Al-Tahawy’s Brookyln Heights (2010), Bulawayo NoViolet’s We Need New Names (2013)
The four texts were selected from the four regions in Africa and
were all written in the 21st Century this is because migration has
remained a central theme to literatures of the 21st century.
Furthermore, Ike Oguine and Dinaw Mengestu are male authors while Miral
Al-Tahawy and Bulawayo NoViolet are female authors thereby creating the needed
gender balance. All the texts examines the life of the characters as immigrants
vis-Ã -vis their life in their home country. Two of the central characters are
males (Oguine’s Squatter’s Tale and
Mengestu’s The Beautiful Thing That
Heaven Bears) while the remaining two are females (NoViolet’s We Need New Names and Al-Tahawy’s Brooklyn Height)
1.8
Theoretical
Framework
Literary theories are used as underlying principles
to understanding Literature. All literary interpretation draws on a basis in
theory but can serve as a justification for very different kinds of critical
activity. It is literary theory that formulates the relationship between author
and work; literary theory develops the significance of race, class, and gender
for literary study, both from the standpoint of the biography of the author and
an analysis of their thematic presence within texts. For the purpose of this
research, Post-colonialism and Post-modernism forms the theoretical framework
for this research.
For a study focused on gendered experiences, gender
based theories such as feminism and masculinity would have been favoured for
this work but this research chooses to study the gendered experiences using
Post-colonialism and Post-modernism. The choice of these theories is to allow
the researcher study the selected characters in the space of their societies.
The use of gender based theories will ultimately downplay either of the genders
and will erode the placement of the characters within the space of the society.
Consequently, this research adopts the selected theories which are further
explained below.
1.8.1
Postmodernism
According to Ramona Hosu and Petru Maior (2013:554), postmodern art
“entails an individual (author/writer, reader/spectator, protagonist(s) as
participants in the act of communication) that plays an active role in the act
of fictionalization of reality and the self, possible only through narrativity
and (visual) representation”. Looking into Linda Hutcheon’s explanation,
“Postmodern theories sustain that human ‘reality’ is a construction, that there
is no stable and coherent self and that history and the novel do not offer a
totalizing subjectivity but rather construct it around différance” (Hosu and
Maior 2013:544). Primarily, it is in line with the difference that exists in
human reality that this research is geared.
Jean Baudrillard, a well – known postmodernist theorist, believes
that “reality” cannot be known or accessed in an immediate fashion through the
senses or through the intellect. Instead, we know it through its
representations, especially through its media representation.” (Bhat 2010:4) By
using the term “simulacrum,” Baudrillard describes the various artificial
environments that mediate our perception of the world. (Bhat 2010:4) It is
worthy to note that this includes the novel.
For the critic Ihab Hassan,
Postmodernism
is one of the three modes of artistic change in the last hundred years –
avant-garde, modern, and postmodernism. While modernism has been “hieratic,
hyptactical and formalist,” postmodernism is “playful, paratactical and
deconstructionist” (The Postmodern Turn: Essay in Postmodern Theory and
Culture, 86). Hassan identifies indeterminacy (with its traits like irony,
rupture and silence) and immanence as two major tendencies in postmodernism. As
Christopher Norris remarks, most of the critics of postmodernism ... have opted
for the “open-ended free play of style and speculative thought, untrammelled by
‘rules’ of any kind” (Deconstruction: Theory and Practice, 91). (Bhat 2010:2)
This open-ended free play of style identified by Norris is what in postmodernism
is known as pastiche or eclectic juxtaposition.
According to Sushil Dhuldhar
(2012:9), the main features of postmodernism include:
fragmentation
,decentred, indeterminacy, the break with tradition, new in subject matter,
free verse, self-consciousness, discontinuous composition, ambiguity,
destructured, dehumanized subject, incoherence, relativism, no grand narrative,
antiform, anti-narrative and irony.
Although migration is said to be a human phenomenon, it is still a
break with tradition and therefore postmodern. This is because people who seem
to have settled in a country and maintained a culture over time suddenly decide
to abandon their roots and culture to travel across borders and maintain a new
environment and nationality strange from their roots. In the explanation by
Steven Connor (2004:63), “Where modernist literature worked on time, literary
postmodernism would work in time. If modernism means the assumption that
literature approaches to the condition of poetry, postmodernism means the
tendency to assume that literature is intrinsically narrative”.
1.8.2 Postcolonialism
Postcolonialism comes from the word and idea of the postcolonial.
According to Lawrence Phillips (2003:299), “The term postcolonial designates
the states of peoples and regions formally colonized principally by western
imperial nations, and the study of the material and cultural implications of
that history and its aftermath”. Looking at migrant narratives focusing on the
stories of African immigrants, one examines the states of peoples and regions
formally colonised principally by western imperial nations. In diaspora, the
African also faces cultural and material implications. According to Raman
Selden et al. (2005:219), “From a postcolonial perspective, Western values and
traditions of thought and literature, including versions of postmodernism, are
guilty of a repressive ethnocentrism”. By this the culture of the migrating
African internationalized in Western countries is ignored, ridiculed and
criticized as inferior. “Models of Western thought (derived, for example, from
Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud) or of literature (Homer,
Dante, Flaubert, T. S. Eliot) have dominated world culture, marginalizing or
excluding non-Western traditions and forms of cultural life and expression”
[Selden et al. (2005:218-219)]. This is the fate of the African in Western
quarters. It is a situation that is also seen to affect some African writers
writing from the West.
However, it is worthy to note that there are African writers that
still maintain their traditional and cultural forms of expression despite
writing, living in the West, or commenting on African situations from the
diaspora. As pointed out by Lawrence Phillips (2003:229) in this regard, most
practitioners of postcolonialism and their critics would agree that
“postcolonial studies is founded on the aim of giving prominence to voices and
subjectivities previously marginalized or silenced by western colonialism,
which embodies a fundamental critique of western presumptions of cultural and
racial prominence”.
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