Female Diasporic Identity Formation. A Reading of Buchi Emecheta's Afro-British Texts

von Hind Essafir

Academic Paper from the year 2019 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, , language: English, abstract: Over the span of three centuries, the Afro-British tradition has managed to establish itself as a distinguished voice in Britain's literary and cultural scene. While unearthing its first attempts at self-definition, this dissertation first engages with the slave tradition in the particular context of Eighteenth century Enlightenment England, and explores how its emergence initiated the re-inscription of the black race within humankind after years of exclusion. By adopting a feminist and cultural perspective, this essay spotlights the female contribution, it equally examines the extent to which the double discrimination of race and gender further complicates the female identity formation project. Significantly, Second Class Citizen, In The Ditch and Head Above Water stand as typical Afro-British texts that strongly resonate with earlier voices of the tradition, while promoting strategies of resistance and ultimately disturbing contructions of womanhood and female subjectivity. Through these narratives, Buchi Emecheta inscribes herself as a true heiress of an Afro-British female textuality inaugurated two centuries earlier by a pioneering figure as prestigious as Mary Prince. In its effort to uncover the identity politics informing this literary and discursive body, this study lays emphasis on the significance of generic choice to the Afro-British female self-telling via autobiography, while placing it within the much wider project of nation-telling.