MODERN SLAVERY NARRATIVES AND IDENTITIES IN DARKO’S AND UNIGWE’S NOVELS

 

Elizabeth A. Omotayo¹, Omolola A. Ladele² and Charles O. Ogbulogo³

 

¹Doctoral Student, Department of Languages and General Studies, Covenant University, Ota. Ogun State. Nigeria. / Chief Lecturer, Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, Ilaro. Ogun State. Nigeria. sunmbo_omotayo@yahoo.co.uk; elizabeth.omotayo@federalpolyilaro.edu.ng. orcid:0000-0002-1634-417X.

²Assoc. Prof., Department of English, Lagos State University, Ojo. Lagos State. Nigeria. theresaladele@yahoo.co.uk

³Prof., Department of Languages and General Studies, Covenant University, Ota. Ogun State. Nigeria. charles.ogbulogo@covenantuniversity.edu.ng

 

Abstract

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 ‘subalterns’ in the West who are trafficked, indentured as sex workers and are stripped of their fundamental human rights. However, the black female migrants are presented as being complicit in their predicament owing to the unfavourable, harsh and bleak economic climate of countries of the Global South which drive them to make detrimental and dehumanizing choices. The female subjects of the two novels because of the trade they ply in the West become commodified, exploited and stripped of their dignity.

Keywords: migration, black female migrants, African diaspora, exploitation, commodification, postcolonial feminism