Commodity Function in Diaspora Space: Reading Chika Unigwe’s On black sister’s street

Abstract

This paper examines the preoccupation of modern migration with late capitalism and how migrant characters’ identities are formed in tandem with commodities both in pre-migratory contexts and in the diaspora space. Specifically, the discourse focuses on diaspora space as site where multiple processes are at work as fluidity of identities; formation and reformation of peoples are at the centre. It hinges solidly on the templates propounded by Avtar Brah (1996) in her book titled Cartographies of diaspora: contesting identities and Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sister’s Street. The impulse is to delineate the characters in On Black Sister’s Street with a view to divulging the identity constructions of the self and the other both in the homeland and in the new world. Brah’s propositions on diaspora space forms the theoretical scaffolding on which the study is hinged. It is deduced that the multiple representations of people within the diaspora space is congruent with capitalism thereby commodification of identities becomes inherent. It is established that the objectification and commodification of characters result in alienation, exclusion and aloofness, hence, entrenching these fervours of migration.

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