MIGRATION AND DISPLACEMENT IN AFRICAN LITERATURE: A POSTCOLONIAL STUDY OF SEGUN AFOLABI’S A LIFE ELSEWHERE AND ADICHIE CHIMAMANDA’S AMERICANAH

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Department of Arts

This work explores Migration and Displacement in Afolabi‘s A Life Elsewhere and Adichie‘s Americanah.It investigates migration and the attendant displacement of the third world countries which is often premised on the illusion of the search for a good life. Migration is here explored in the light of how its attendant realities; of stereotypes, gender bias, racial discrimination, class difference, among others; amount to social exclusion, isolation and denial of opportunity. This research proceeds on the assumptions that migration is only an illusion of a better lease of life and that, there arein the selected texts,representations of the tendencies of dislocations, identity crises and stereotypes that accompany migration. Consequently, the research adopts postcolonial discourse as a theoretical framework in order to explore the binarisms that the tenets of Postcolonialism provide in terms of gender, race, and class, among others. In the light of the demands of qualitativeresearch methodology which this dissertation adopts,the research explores the peculiar realities of African emigrants as represented in Afolabi‘s A Life Elsewhereand Adichie‘s Americanah, in order to exemplify the extent to whichthe identity status of migrants lead to discrimination in their host land, consider the role of literature in exposing the realities of migration and explore the dislocating experiences that migration creates.Having explored the migrant experiences of the characters in the selected texts, the research finds that the pull and push factors are more often than not, an effect of the imbalances in power relations in and between countries. It also finds that a good life is not entirely an exclusive of migration because the attendant challenges of dislocation and stereotype are largelyhingedon migration. A good life is however, precipitated on opportunities and/or hardwork. The research therefore concludes that the world of migrants is a dicey one and it dislocates, alienates and stereotypes on account of the binaries that characterise race, gender, class and other forms of identity markers within the experience of migration.