 Aeromobilities of diasporic returnees in Francophone African literaturesAnna-Leena Toivanen Mobilities, 2021, vol. 16, issue 4, 597-611 Abstract: Postcolonial literary studies have not paid much attention to literary portrayals of mobility practices partly because the field promotes a reductive understanding of ‘mobility’ as a mere synonym for migration. In order to address this blind spot and to recognise African fictional characters as mobile subjects, the present article focuses on representations of aeromobility in Francophone African literary texts narrating diasporic returnees’ journeys back to their former home countries. As my analysis of five Francophone African return narratives from the 1980s to the 2010s suggests, the aeromobilities of Afrodiasporic returnees are marked by a sense of unease that relates to the issues of (un)belonging and guilt, failures of modernity of the postcolonial nation-state, and the unrealistic expectations that those ‘back home’ have about migrant life. The article underlines the importance of aeromobility in the production of the mobile subjectivity of the returnee and their relationship with the place of return. Date: 2021 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rmobxx:v:16:y:2021:i:4:p:597-611 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2021.1898913 Access Statistics for this article Mobilities is currently edited by Professor Kevin Hannam, Professor Mimi Sheller and Professor John Urry More articles in Mobilities from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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