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- Convenors:
-
Ifeyinwa Okolo
(Federal University Lokoja)
Joseph Abel (Federal University Lokoja)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Linguistic and visual (de)colonialisms
- Location:
- Room 1015
- Sessions:
- Thursday 9 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
The panel seeks contributions that interrogate literary narratives, films, and performances which focus on the movement of migrants from Europe to Africa and not the more popular Africa to Europe move. Where are the European migrants in Africa and what are they up to?
Long Abstract:
When Camara Laye’s The Radiance of the King (1954) was published, some critics argued that the novel was an allegorical representation of an inversion of the migrant African’s experience in Europe. What Laye did was to take the story of “the clueless African lost in unfamiliar Europe”, replace the African with a European and place him in an unfamiliar African setting to see how he survives. Laye’s novel encapsulates the human being, irrespective of race struggle with adjusting to the unfamiliar when uprooted and thrown into a new environment.
Today, the dynamics of migration have become more complex. Depending on who the migrant is and where the destination is, different narratives are appearing in literary works to account for these movements. Cajetan Iheka and Jack Taylor (2018: 5-6) recognise the following as some features of the migration narrative: “the portrayal of the debilitating conditions that propel migrants to leave the continent, the experiences of migrants abroad, their relationship to the homeland, and the negotiation of a possible return, be it physical or psychological”. These, however, seem to account for the Africa to Europe movements but not the Europe to Africa moves since their study did not focus on the latter. This panel investigates if the same features apply to the latter group.
The panel seeks contributions that interrogate literary narratives, films, and performances which focus on the movement of migrants from Europe to Africa and not the more popular Africa to Europe move. Where are the European migrants in Africa?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 9 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
Discourse on migration has mostly centered on an Africa-Europe perspective, suggesting power relations. This study shows via a critical discourse analysis of selected films the effects of Europe-Africa migration and reveals pragmatic acts deployed to convey ideologies and power relations.
Paper long abstract:
Discourse on migration has mostly centered on an Africa-Europe perspective, thus unwittingly suggesting power relations that make the latter appear more powerful and always sought-after by Africans. This study attempts to show, via a critical discourse analysis, the effects of Europe-Africa migration, hence showing the need to tell the story of what also makes Africa powerful. Using purposively selected films – Isoken and The Wedding Party (representations of Nigerian realities) – data extracted show that Europeans also migrate to Africa for work and schooling purposes, and in the process, they also find love that leads to wedlock. These do not happen without the ideological underpinnings of the more supposedly powerful participants being combated and won. Pragmatic acts that are deployed to convey representations of ideologies and power relations are unearthed.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines a young European's first encounter with the complexity of Lagos using spatial literary theory.
Paper long abstract:
This paper considers the spatial presentation of Lagos as a contradictory city with a precarious personality that can be fallen in love with in Maureen Hansen’s Letters from Lagos. In this memoir, Hansen shares her impressions of the city as a firsthand experience of a foreigner. In 1970, Maureen Hansen traveled to Lagos to join her husband, who was working as an expatriate with one of the multinational companies in Lagos. During the sixteen years she spent in Lagos, she constantly sent letters to her parents back home in London. Shortly before her mother died, her mother handed her all the letters that she (Hansen) wrote from Lagos during this time. Letters from Lagos is published for her grandchildren, with whom she would like to share her humble beginnings and travels in Nigeria. Although the memoir was published in the United Kingdom in 2016, its realities are of the early days of Nigerian independence shortly after the relative calm after the Nigerian civil war. This paper uses spatial literary theory to examine Hansen’s outsider’s presentations of the precarious nature of Lagos and how she simultaneously preserves the image of Lagos as a city one can love.
Paper short abstract:
What exactly does it mean to be a knowledge expat? This paper shows that by problematising the endorsement of mobility and expertise of different migrants, we could reflect on the implications on the discourse of decolonising academia.
Paper long abstract:
Echoing growing global consciousness to respond to increased racial inequality concerning knowledge production in/on Africa, calls to decolonise knowledge production from across the world have risen to that end, albeit slight changes. Some African scholars have argued that the global West interests have often set Africa’s intellectual agenda reflecting former colonial relationships and geopolitical power. The movement of migrants (skilled labour, academics and researchers) from Europe to Africa is rising and celebrated, while the reverse migration- the movement of people from the global south to the global north is abhorred. When Europeans migrate to Africa, it is easy for them to be accorded and/or claim the status of an expert, implying that they have in-depth knowledge of a country or particular issue in Africa, attracting endorsements from colleagues, academic institutions, and funding agencies. Though fewer studies focus on the experiences of these ‘experts’, we argue that their status as ‘experts’ is less challenged, as reflected in the kind of extensive research projects they manage. At the same time, this status of ‘experts’ is not afforded to African scholars undertaking scholarships in Europe. Begging to question what it means to be a knowledge expat and/expert, we draw from our own experiences as academics from Africa studying in Europe. We argue that both terms knowledge ‘expat’ and ‘expert’ are racialised terms meant to exclude migrant scholars from Africa, who given the current geopolitical imbalances find it hard to claim such expertise. Even when they claim it, they hardly get the necessary endorsement.