"At Home in the World”: Material Culture in Contemporary Africana Women’s Literature

Abstract

This dissertation aims at discussing the representations of material in contemporary Africana women’s writing, as represented in Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names. Bill Brown, Igor Kopytoff and Benedict Anderson among others, framed the analysis of material culture and the formation of identity in this research, while touching on important aspects such as a sense of belonging, individual and collective memory on the construction of identity. With equal reference to the juxtaposition of diaspora and transnationalism, the scholarship of Avtar Brah, Rose George-Marangoly and bell hooks define the meaning of home adopted in this research to highlight the material culture present in physical sites of remembrances in the three literary works (places and objects) that are central to the protagonist’s identity formation. While in the diaspora, the protagonists' new identities often emerge through a connection to their homeland in Africa. This can be seen through various mediums, such as embarking on a personal journey to the slave castles in Ghana while tracing the history of the transatlantic slave trade in Lose Your Mother; exploring interconnected stories of descendants spanning centuries through their possession of a family heirloom which informs their understanding of family history in Homegoing; and experiencing migration and cultural displacement through cultural artifacts that inform one's memory of home in We Need New Names. In conclusion, identity negotiation between the homeland and diaspora, despite being a challenging process, can be overcome since the women in these literary works are able to maintain a connection to their homelands through the places and objects they encounter there. These works illuminate the multifaceted process through which identities are formed in diaspora, emphasizing the enduring impact of historical legacies, personal experiences, and cultural connections to ancestral homelands.