Elizabeth Adesunbo Omotayo - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Elizabeth Adesunbo Omotayo
Migratory movements of Africans to the West in recent times have led to the evolvement of the new... more Migratory movements of Africans to the West in recent times have led to the evolvement of the new African diaspora, distinct from the old that emerged in the immediate post-transatlantic slavery era, but with both comparable in number of those involved and scope. Lived experience's implication in new identity construct of migrants leads to this textbased exploration of how first generation male and female African migrants in Bulawayo's We Need New Names and Imbolo Mbue's Behold the Dreamers reflect Africanity. The selected texts, which are depictions of recent African diaspora experience, are analyzed using postcolonial concepts of 'otherness', 'subalternity' and Stuart Hall's notion of 'cultural identity'. The outcome of the relocation of many African migrants to the West is the expression of their Africanity in distinct ways. As postcolonial subjects, contemporary African migrants have found themselves at the 'Centre' where the reality of their racialization and essentialization have grave consequences on their identities thereby rendering them 'unwhole' Africans.
International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, 2019
The current phenomenon of globalization enables the movement of people across borders including A... more The current phenomenon of globalization enables the movement of people across borders including Africans as well. At no other time has there been such great numbers of African writers in the Western diaspora writing and publishing at the centre for a global audience. The environment, circumstances as well as several other situations in which the writers bring the local into the global space define the "new African diaspora". Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an acclaimed female African writer, who has taken advantage of her cosmopolitanism to present the reality of her race, ethnic group and her gender at the centre. Adichie"s 2013 novel Americanah presents the challenges and impact of migration and globalization faced by the heroine, Ifemelu and that of several others in the new world. Adichie in the novel juxtaposes the local situations and global realities with each assuming different significations for her characters at profound levels. This exposition is hinged on post colonialism"s key terms such as "hybridity" and "liminality" as well as Taiye Selasi"s concept of "Afropolitan". The instances of the interplay of global and local environments in Americanah are brought to the fore to advance the construction of new identities of the African migrants. The outcome is such that the global environment is seen to have enabled new identities of migrants now free of confining dictates of the local environment where cultural norms hold sway. Contribution/ Originality: This study contributes to the existing literature of new African diaspora fiction by identifying that the change in the identity of contemporary black migrants as presented in the highly critiqued Adichie's Americanah is largely due to the dynamic interplay of the global and local environments that the migrants traverse.
The last four decades have witnessed mass movements of people from countries of the Global South ... more The last four decades have witnessed mass movements of people from countries of the Global South to parts of Asia, Europe and the West. These movements have been the subject of various studies and have been documented in literary forms. Several of the studies have recognized the independent and autonomous migration of women in recent times for economic reasons. Chika Unigwe‟s On Black Sisters’ Street (2007) and Amma Darko‟s Beyond the Horizon (1995) are focused on the black women who are migrating to the West and the problematics of their movements. A plethora of previous studies on the two novels have focused on their gender portrayals and feminist features. Through a postcolonial feminist reading of the novels and scrutiny of their female subjects, this study reveals new identities of black female migrants in the West which reflect the primordial status of women of old African diaspora. These modern slavery narratives present black female migrants as the „other‟ and the „subaltern...
The general belief is that when men write they seem to throw women under the bus by portraying th... more The general belief is that when men write they seem to throw women under the bus by portraying them as characters that are weak, emotional, voiceless and subjugated by society in their fiction. It is taken that it is difficult for men not to write this way because of the cultural imperatives that seem to promote patriarchal tendencies in our social relations and the way the two genders engage on issues. Using the postcolonial feminist theory, this paper attempts to draw inferences from NoViolet Bulawayo‟s We Need New Names (2013) to show that subjugation of female characters certainly exceeds the commonly known assumptions. It postulates that the cognitive dissonance and the „subjectification‟ of women as espoused in most literary works are unintended outcomes of „arrogant minds‟ and not direct products of primary intentions. The novel which is set both in the United States of America and the author‟s home country, Zimbabwe, and one that traverses the protagonist‟s childhood experie...
Migratory movements of Africans to the West in recent times have led to the evolvement of the new... more Migratory movements of Africans to the West in recent times have led to the evolvement of the new African diaspora, distinct from the old that emerged in the immediate post-transatlantic slavery era, but with both comparable in number of those involved and scope. Lived experience's implication in new identity construct of migrants leads to this textbased exploration of how first generation male and female African migrants in Bulawayo's We Need New Names and Imbolo Mbue's Behold the Dreamers reflect Africanity. The selected texts, which are depictions of recent African diaspora experience, are analyzed using postcolonial concepts of 'otherness', 'subalternity' and Stuart Hall's notion of 'cultural identity'. The outcome of the relocation of many African migrants to the West is the expression of their Africanity in distinct ways. As postcolonial subjects, contemporary African migrants have found themselves at the 'Centre' where the reality of their racialization and essentialization have grave consequences on their identities thereby rendering them 'unwhole' Africans.
International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, 2019
The current phenomenon of globalization enables the movement of people across borders including A... more The current phenomenon of globalization enables the movement of people across borders including Africans as well. At no other time has there been such great numbers of African writers in the Western diaspora writing and publishing at the centre for a global audience. The environment, circumstances as well as several other situations in which the writers bring the local into the global space define the "new African diaspora". Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an acclaimed female African writer, who has taken advantage of her cosmopolitanism to present the reality of her race, ethnic group and her gender at the centre. Adichie"s 2013 novel Americanah presents the challenges and impact of migration and globalization faced by the heroine, Ifemelu and that of several others in the new world. Adichie in the novel juxtaposes the local situations and global realities with each assuming different significations for her characters at profound levels. This exposition is hinged on post colonialism"s key terms such as "hybridity" and "liminality" as well as Taiye Selasi"s concept of "Afropolitan". The instances of the interplay of global and local environments in Americanah are brought to the fore to advance the construction of new identities of the African migrants. The outcome is such that the global environment is seen to have enabled new identities of migrants now free of confining dictates of the local environment where cultural norms hold sway. Contribution/ Originality: This study contributes to the existing literature of new African diaspora fiction by identifying that the change in the identity of contemporary black migrants as presented in the highly critiqued Adichie's Americanah is largely due to the dynamic interplay of the global and local environments that the migrants traverse.
The last four decades have witnessed mass movements of people from countries of the Global South ... more The last four decades have witnessed mass movements of people from countries of the Global South to parts of Asia, Europe and the West. These movements have been the subject of various studies and have been documented in literary forms. Several of the studies have recognized the independent and autonomous migration of women in recent times for economic reasons. Chika Unigwe‟s On Black Sisters’ Street (2007) and Amma Darko‟s Beyond the Horizon (1995) are focused on the black women who are migrating to the West and the problematics of their movements. A plethora of previous studies on the two novels have focused on their gender portrayals and feminist features. Through a postcolonial feminist reading of the novels and scrutiny of their female subjects, this study reveals new identities of black female migrants in the West which reflect the primordial status of women of old African diaspora. These modern slavery narratives present black female migrants as the „other‟ and the „subaltern...
The general belief is that when men write they seem to throw women under the bus by portraying th... more The general belief is that when men write they seem to throw women under the bus by portraying them as characters that are weak, emotional, voiceless and subjugated by society in their fiction. It is taken that it is difficult for men not to write this way because of the cultural imperatives that seem to promote patriarchal tendencies in our social relations and the way the two genders engage on issues. Using the postcolonial feminist theory, this paper attempts to draw inferences from NoViolet Bulawayo‟s We Need New Names (2013) to show that subjugation of female characters certainly exceeds the commonly known assumptions. It postulates that the cognitive dissonance and the „subjectification‟ of women as espoused in most literary works are unintended outcomes of „arrogant minds‟ and not direct products of primary intentions. The novel which is set both in the United States of America and the author‟s home country, Zimbabwe, and one that traverses the protagonist‟s childhood experie...