- Title
- Resisting the ‘Native Informant’ trope in examples of African Diaspora art and literature
- Creator
- Nuen, Tinika
- ThesisAdvisor
- Spencer, Lynda Gichanda
- ThesisAdvisor
- Henderson, Patricia
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- text
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/131657
- Identifier
- vital:36708
- Description
- This thesis draws attention to the existence of the ‘native informant’ trope in the African Diaspora. It argues that a strong emphasis towards studying diasporic groups in relation to their African origin revives, consequently, the colonial politics that underpin the continent as an unknown mythical place. In response to this issue, I introduce multidisciplinary case studies that highlight various artists and authors who resist and challenge the diasporic individual as the ‘native informant’. Their works reinterpret and redefine the relationship between African communities, their connection to the continent and their experiences of living abroad. Analysing the exhibitions Looking Both Ways, Africa Remix and Flow, I investigate their visual art discourses that interpret diasporic artists and their works as cultural embodiments of their African background. As a result, the three art shows marginalise other potential readings to view diasporic experiences. This thesis introduces three resistant themes that reconceive the diasporic person’s relationship to the African Diaspora based on language, spatial interaction and self-identification opposed to a geographic tie. The first theme (language) references Victor Ekpuk’s drawings and Isidore Okpewho’s novel Call Me By My Rightful Name to suggest a language based diasporic experience. The second theme (spatial interaction) looks at Emeka Ogboh’s sound installations and Teju Cole’s novel Open City. Both works examine a diasporic individual’s conflicted engagement with her place of origin. The third theme (self-identification) considers the individual-community relationship in Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s performance art and Chika Unigwe’s novel On Black Sisters’ Street. Each of these visual-literary pairs focus on various components that shape the African diasporic lifestyle. My research re-interprets the continent’s significance in the diaspora from a geographic construct to a socio-spiritual connection to a community. Firstly, it outlines the persistent issue of a colonial residue in Africa’s definition as a physical-cultural space, and secondly, it offers three alternative discourses to read diasporic identities outside a geographic framework. I argue that belonging is a social individual-collective effort rather than an anchor to a tangible environment.
- Format
- 129 leaves, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Literary Studies in English
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nuen, Tinika
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Collections
RU Department of English Language and Linguistics
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | NUEN-MA-TR20-90.pdf | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |