Between Homeland and Hostland

Negotiating Afrodiasporic Family Relationships in Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde (1994) and Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go (2013)

Bibliographic Data

ID6091351
AuthorsRita Shika Amelordzi (0000-0001-9425-2740, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg Würzburg Germany, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume56
Issue1
Pages172-201
Publication date2025-05-07
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMatatu (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0932-9714 • E-ISSN: 1875-7421
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/18757421-05601005
OpenAlexW4410220039
LanguageEN
References cited9

This paper explores the representation of the dynamics of Afrodiasporic family relationships in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by analysing Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde and Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go. These two women writers interrogate the family relationships of Africans living in Europe and North America. The cultural challenges encountered in the diaspora complicate African immigrant family bonds and relationships. The intersections of gender, race, and class in immigrants’ host countries present challenges that they must negotiate, leading to family disintegration or conflict. These intersections are further complicated by the generational gap between first-generation immigrants and the children they raise. First-generation immigrants experience a clash between the culture of their home country and their hostland, affecting the family relationships they build. The notion of home (the homeland) then acts as a catalyst that breaks or complicates family relationships in the diaspora; however, in some instances, it provides a way to mend and heal

African studies · Homeland · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Law · Race, History, and American Society

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