Buchi Emecheta and Françoise Ega: Migrant Writings from the Global South

Abstract

In the scenario of people moving between the center and the periphery of the globe, emerging narratives, literary subjects and discursive practices cross physical and cultural borders imposed by colonialism. This picture is present in Cidadã de segunda classe (2018), by Buchi Emecheta and Cartas a uma negra: narrativa antilhana (2021), by Françoise Ega. From the experiences of Nigerian Adah and Martinican Maméga, who emigrated to London and Marseille, respectively, those relating to motherhood, housing, professional occupations and writing are selected and problematized. To do this, we look for tools that we deem appropriate for analyzing the character’s experiences in debates on decolonial feminism through research by Françoise Vergès, Oyèrónke Oyewùmí, Grada Kilomba, Gayatri Spivak, Conceição Evaristo and Gloria Anzaldúa related to social reproduction and racialization, the gendering of relationships, the control of speech and enunciation, epistemic privilege and writing as an agency to confront colonialism; in the same way, contributions from Anibal Quijano, Edward Said and Frantz Fanon regarding the coloniality of power, the production of knowledge, language and dominating mentalities. The dialogue carried out between the texts and the theoretical bibliography will allow us to affirm the existence of a relationship between the place that these racialized women occupy in the social reproduction of the capitalist order and the writing of women as emancipation and protagonism in the face of colonialist policies.