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- Convenors:
-
Anthony Okeregbe
(University of Lagos)
Patrick Oloko (University of Lagos)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Imagining ‘Africanness’
- Location:
- S59 (RW I)
- Sessions:
- Monday 30 September, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This panel revisits the issues of desperate migration of African youths to the global north, otherwise called Japa, the tensed phenomenon of Afropolitanism and nascent identity discourses around fluid spaces of global citizenship, and what they portend for African future.
Long Abstract:
Following an earlier discussion on the crises faced by African youths over their trapped state of mobility and indeterminate future, this panel revisits the issues of desperate migration of African youths to the global north, otherwise called Japa, the tensed phenomenon of Afropolitanism and nascent identity discourses around fluid spaces of global citizenship, and what they portend for African future. While Africa has been said to be a continent of dispersion and immersion, of extra and intra mobility, the phenomenon of Japa and Afropolitanism challenge essentialism, traditional consensus-building and knowledge production capital. They also raise questions demanding frank but dispassionate discussion: How does the relational definition of Afropolitanism affect spatial connections and temporal affiliations such as autochthony, custom and race in Africa and negotiated relationality elsewhere? Where does the Afropolitan stand amidst providers of these connections and affiliations? How does it define the state of belongingness of Afropolitans for Africa-based non-Afropolitans? What tensions do and can arise in the co-belongingness of engaged spaces? And how can and should they be addressed? What kind of knowledge production about Africa arises from Afropolitanism? How is this knowledge production situated for the reconfiguration of African Studies? This panel seeks critical multi/interdisciplinary engagements with ongoing debates on the subject to discuss how deliberations could promote the reconfiguration of African Studies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 30 September, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates the migration trends among African youth, focusing specifically on the experiences and impact on identity and space from the Kenyan perspective.
Paper long abstract:
Heightened rates of unemployment, governance crises, persistent gender disparities and the threat/ actualities of climate change make migration a practical coping strategy for African youths. This phenomenon of seeking opportunities in the global north, commonly known by its Nigerian appellation as "Japa," reflects a complex interplay of socio-economic, political, and cultural factors. This paper investigates the trend among Kenyan youth, focusing specifically on migration experiences impact on identity and space.
The paper argues that beyond the economic opportunities, education and pursuit of a better life, a certain construction and negotiation of identity driven largely by individual self-perception, cultural ties, and national dis/affiliations informs how Kenyan migrants position themselves in the trending phenomenon of migration.
We hope to show how the physical displacement of Kenyan youths to the global north reshapes their understanding of international space. The overarching aim is to demonstrate what migration and its aftermath poses for identity and space and how implications arising therefrom can reshape understanding of Africa and its discourses.
Key words: Japa, Migration, identity, international space, coping strategy
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines issues of migration, Afropolitanism, affect, resistance, and coming-of-age. It analyses NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names and Bisi Adjapon’s Daughter in Exile as case studies to discuss the new African diaspora in the United States in 21st-century Anglophone women’s fiction.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I will examine migration, Afropolitanism, affect, resistance, and coming-of-age issues in 21st-century African women’s fiction set in Africa and the United States. I will analyse as case studies NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2013) and Bisi Adjapon’s Daughter in Exile (2023). These fictions deal with the Bildung processes of their female protagonists across two continents, Africa and America. I will start with the concept of "Afropolitanism" (Mbembe 2007; Selasi 2005) to analyse the main characters’ migration and formative experiences in the United States and the connections between the authors and their heroines’ movements and mobilities.
Then, I will engage with Ahmed’s thesis about the circulation of emotions (2004; 2008) and happiness paradigm (2010) to focus on integration and cultural assimilation issues in America. I will draw on Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality (1989, 1990) to investigate how different axes of identity and power (e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, and class) through their entanglements with affective temporalities create complex affective-temporal landscapes. I will suggest that emotions such as fear and hate help reinforce existing power structures, contributing to fostering psychological models of racism and sexism. Simultaneously, women's unhappiness, frustration, and nostalgia inform their stories and disclose their refusal to accept passivity and helplessness, showing their willingness to react against the forms of discrimination they often face and the circumstances in which they are forced to live. I will ultimately demonstrate how the narratives above give voice to African women's political and ethical demands for reparation and redress.
Paper short abstract:
Texts influenced by Pan-Africanism and Negritude have long championed the idea of African diaspora members returning to the continent. However, a stark disparity often exists between the notion of home and the harsh realities they encounter on returning.
Paper long abstract:
The theme of return migration runs through the works of various generations of African writers. Texts influenced by Pan-Africanism and Negritude have long championed the idea of African diaspora members returning to the continent to contribute to its development. However, a stark disparity often exists between the romanticised notion of home held by some African migrants in the global north and the harsh realities they encounter on returning. This contrast is exemplified through the experiences of Sissie, the protagonist in Our Sister Killjoy, who passionately advocates for Africans in Europe to return and aid in developing their nations. Yet, her idealised vision of return sharply diverges from the sobering reality Kehinde faces in Buchi Emecheta's novel of the same name.
Returning to one's homeland is frequently marked by ambivalence and disillusionment, as the lofty aspirations and dreams nurtured abroad clash with the often challenging reality back home. This paper comparatively analyses the two novels, Our Sister Killjoy and Kehinde, to show the complexities of return migration. Moreover, the texts highlight how the distance from home can lead to an idealised perception of it, a place of perfection that may not align with its reality. Both Aidoo and Emecheta's novels underscore the intricate interplay between individual hopes, collective societal expectations, and the actual challenges that shape the experience of return migrants.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will focus on the recent phenomenon of African migration to Poland. Particularly it will focus on the city of Lublin, a peripheric city at the Polish Eastern border. The paper will examine the notion of Afropolitianism at the intersections of migration, religion, Polishness and periphery.
Paper long abstract:
While Afropolitanism is a well-established term and serves as a useful descriptive and analytical tool, in Europe it is also heavily linked with diasporic communities in central node cities of the Global North. Most of them are linked with Africa through the colonial past and global economic and cultural networks of global cities. In this paper I would like to challenge the category of Afropolitan by reflecting on it from the angle of Lublin, a periphery, that is hardly defined as the Global North or the Global East. I will analyze the multiple intersections the term Afropolitan implies while contextualized in Poland, such as local responses, new local social and religious formations and the notions of transition, rooting and escape.
Lublin is a peripheric city in Poland near the Ukrainian border that experienced a massive rise of young African migrants, mostly students, in the last few years. Historically the city of Lublin might be characterized by its culture and economic link to the nowadays Ukrainian territory, with no links with Africa. During the WWII the Jewish part of the city was demolished by the Nazis and most of Jews were murdered in the Majdanek concentration camp. The burden of history, the geopolitical location of this city, and particular formations of Whiteness and Polishness in the region are particular contexts for the sudden appearance of young Africans, coming mostly from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Kenya.
The paper will be based on the data collected in the ongoing research project PentACTors.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses intersectionality as an overlapping framework with triple oppression among Afropolitan-women formerly traumatized by a dystopian space. The scope of analysis embraces fictional gendered narratives of classism, racism and sexism in selected 21st century African novels.
Paper long abstract:
Afropolitanism within the literary space has an intrusion with thwarted sensibility--a form of concept with underlying ideas.. With Taiye Selasi's seminal essay "What is Afropolitanism/ Bye Bye Barber (2005), there has been a perceived reaction from different Afrocentric critics with differing postulations. Specifically, this study explicates Afropolitan-women's strategy for survival in a globalizing context--a mentality with complex dimensions and focus on fictional diasporic adventure within the Nigerian literary discourse. Significantly, the struggle for African identity is wrapped with liberation from three-fold perceptions--classicism, racism and sexism. From the perspective of belonging, one perceives inherent questions of identity (belongings) , accommodation (home) and aloofness (feeling of exile) as emergent issues. The reality is that the feeling of homelessness overwhelms the psyche when trapped with the issues of race and identity. The resultant effect is not merely cloned in a physical displacement, but a fusion of anxiety and disillusionment.
The paper conceptualizes “Afropolitan Kinship”—a radical solidarity of individuals trapped in the culture of mobility, dislocation and despair. This study further conceptualizes ‘Afropolitan Womanhood’ as a universal African tenet traditionally ascribed to womanliness in combating symbolic violence and oppressive mannerisms that threaten Afropolitan-women’s survival and existence in a state of in-betweeness.
Paper short abstract:
Based on literature review, this paper sets out to answer the following questions. What are the main themes captured in the literature on youth, Japaism and Afropolitanism? What are the complex challenges that they grapple with? What are the gaps in literature?
Paper long abstract:
This essay reviews close to 50 journal articles on Afropolitanism and youth in relation to Japaism to the Global North. The main themes brought out in these articles include: Decolonization through Afropolitanism; Afrodiasporic youth identities as brought out in music (hip-hop), films, comedy, literature and intermediality; African young cultural entrepreneurs in social media and scambaiting; gender conceptions of masculinity, womanisms and queer notions; Intersectionality; young migrant refugees and human rights amongst others. This paper postulates that the young Afropolitan has to juggle with a multiplicity of complex challenges in search for an identity and a tentative belonging. Therefore, based on the literature reviewed, there is need to do more research on young women migrants and to look at migrations within Africa e.g from Kenya to South Africa. Geographically, more articles have been written in relation to South Africa. Therefore, there is need to have more research coming from other parts of Africa.