Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures

In Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures, Anna-Leena Toivanen explores the representations and relationship of mobilities and cosmopolitanisms in Franco- and Anglophone African and Afrodiasporic literary texts from the 1990s to the 2010s. Representations of mobility practices are discussed against three categories of cosmopolitanism reflecting the privileged, pragmatic, and critical aspects of the concept. The main scientific contribution of Toivanen’s book is its attempt to enhance dialogue between postcolonial literary studies and mobilities research. The book criticises reductive understandings of ‘mobility’ as a synonym for migration, and problematises frequently made links between mobility and cosmopolitanism. Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms adopts a comparative approach to Franco- and Anglophone African and Afrodiasporic literatures, often discussed separately despite their common themes and parallel paths. Half Title 2 Series Information 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction 14 1 Mobility and Cosmopolitanism: Complex Relations, Shortcomings, and Unease 21 2 Mobilities, Representation, and the Literary Form 28 3 Outline of the Book and Chapter Summaries 34 Part 1 Trouble in the Business Class 40 Chapter 1 Anxious Mobilities of Afropolitans avant la lettre: Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story 42 1 Automobility: Undecidedness in the Streets of Accra 45 2 Hotels as In-between Spaces 49 3 Transnational Business Class Travel: Afropolitans avant la lettre 53 4 Conclusion: Freedom of Movement? 59 Chapter 2 The Hotel as a Space of Transit in Sefi Atta’s and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Short Stories 60 1 Atta’s Hotel: A Chronotope of Hypermobility, Inequality, and Unbelonging 64 2 Adichie’s Hotel Room: Adulterous Space between the Domestic and the Public 70 3 Conclusion: Being in Transit, Longing for Home 75 Chapter 3 Uneasy ‘Homecoming’ in Alain Mabanckou’s Lumières de Pointe-Noire 77 1 Returnee: A Tourist-Native 80 2 Nostalgia and Loss 85 3 Returned Gazes, Unbalanced Dialogues 90 4 Blind Spot behind the Camera: La blanche 94 5 Conclusion: Problematics of a Business Class Return 96 Part 2 Budget Travels, Practical Cosmopolitanisms 98 Chapter 4 New Technologies and Communication Gaps in Novels by Liss Kihindou, Véronique Tadjo, NoViolet Bulawayo, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 100 1 Formal Matters: The Mobile Poetics of Communication Technologies 104 2 Technological Advances – From Letters to Email and Skype 107 3 Creating Distance: Communication Gaps 111 4 Conclusion: Ruptured Dialogues and Unbalanced Cosmopolitanisms 118 Chapter 5 Everyday Urban Mobilities in Michèle Rakotoson’s Elle, au printemps and Alain Mabanckou’s Tais-toi et meurs 120 1 Cartographies of Paris 122 2 Débrouillardise Cosmopolitanism: Survival in a New Environment 128 3 Peripheral Dead Ends 132 4 Conclusion: Managing the Metropolis through Mobility 138 Chapter 6 European Peripheries and Practical Cosmopolitanism in Fabienne Kanor’s Faire l’aventure 139 1 Peripheries and the Dream of “la grosse Europe” 142 2 Débrouillardise Cosmopolitanism: Limits and Potentials 149 3 Conclusion: Out of Reach? Centres and Cosmopolitan Ideals 157 Part 3 Abject Travels of Citizens of Nowhere 160 Chapter 7 Failing Border Crossings and Cosmopolitanism in Brian Chikwava’s Harare North 162 1 Cosmopolitanism as an Active Engagement 164 2 Instances of Anti-cosmopolitanism 166 3 Non-dialogue and Linguistic Nonconformity 171 4 Parodying the Afropolitan 173 5 Abject Unbelonging 175 6 Conclusion: Cosmopolitanism’s Breakdown 179 Chapter 8 Arrested Clandestine Odysseys in Sefi Atta’s “Twilight Trek” and Marie NDiaye’s Trois femmes puissantes 181 1 Erased Identities 187 2 Tropes of Mobility: Shoes, Trucks, and Boats 193 3 Sand and Sea: The Slavery Parallel 196 4 Conclusion: Precarious Journeys 199 Chapter 9 Zombie Travels: J. R. Essomba’s Le Paradis du nord and Caryl Phillips’s A Distant Shore 201 1 Tropes of Zombifying Mobilities: Hiding, Confinement, Dehumanisation, and Darkness 205 2 Not Feeling It: Lost Selves, Lost Emotions 209 3 Europe and the Failures of Cosmopolitanism 212 4 Eliminating the Zombie 215 5 Conclusion: The Poetics of Zombification 219 Coda 220 Bibliography 224 Index 253 "In Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures, the author explores the representations and relationship of mobilities and cosmopolitanisms in Franco- and Anglophone African and Afrodiasporic literary texts from the 1990s to the 2010s. Representations of mobility practices are discussed against three categories of cosmopolitanism reflecting the privileged, pragmatic, and critical aspects of the concept"-- Provided by publisher