MIGRATION AND HYBRIDITY IN KINCAID’S LUCY DESAI’S THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS AND ADICHIE’S AMERICANAH

ABSTRACT

That postcolonial literary theory has been much employed in the service of literary criticism is a given. That one of the approaches to literature involves viewing it as a member of a specific class which can be engaged in a comparative study is also certain. This is based on the Aristotelian notion of mimesis as production, representation and creation of the existent as well as the probable because artists do not just create what they see but what could happen, accounting for the nature of art as a reflection of society and at the same time, a heterocosm. However, a combination of the current theory and recent phenomena of migration and hybridity in a single research which explores their interconnectedness is unique. This study investigates in a postcolonial manner, the seeming absence of scholarship of a comparative nature on the link between migration and hybridity on three fronts: the regional front, migrant-status of individuals and gender. It does this using three texts: Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which represent the Caribbean, Asian and African regions, respectively. Using the interpretative-historical design, the research explores hybridity’s relationship with migration in the texts to ascertain the relationship between migration and hybridity and, allow for a comparison of the said relationship between them. It also investigates the effects of both phenomena on the characters in different regions based on migrant-status, region and gender difference. Consequently, findings from the research reveal that migration and hybridity are caused by lingering effects of colonialism and, globalisation, and are shared experiences of all postcolonial individuals irrespective of region and gender. Secondly, migration is seen to trigger increased expressions of hybridity in characters. While migration and hybridity are seen to result in fulfilment with ideological changes, some negative effects like angst, psychosis and discontent are also the plight of characters who engage in migration and/or hybridity.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

The Third World, also known as postcolonial nations, has had the experience of colonialism. These nations include countries in the African, Asian, Australian and South American continents, including the group of islands crowning the northern coast of the South American continent. Although the United States of America was also colonised, given its world status today, its “treatment of Native Americans (sometimes called internal colonisation), and its annexation of other parts of the world” (Kottak 223) it is not considered a postcolonial state.

The experience of colonialism has been so profound that it continues to define aspects of the lives of postcolonial peoples ranging from cultural, social, economic, and political to psychological issues. Edward Said says of it: “to have been colonized was a fate with lasting indeed grotesquely unfair results, especially after national independence had been achieved” (207). The people were faced with a plethora of issues and came to realise that they had “freed themselves on one level but… remained victims of their past on another” (Said 207). From the period of colonialism when Jean-Paul Sartre in his preface to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth described the condition of the native as a “neurosis introduced and maintained by the colonist in the colonized with their consent” (iv) to the post-colonial period, which is now, these effects have been manifest. Anibal Quijano argues that presently, the new form of colonialism facing the postcolonial individual or subject is that of ‘labour’ and ‘power’ (533-

538). The West has control of these two elements thus requiring that other nations, in order to get a bit of this power, acquiesce to the wants of the Occident. A direct effect which this present colonialism has is on the identity formation and expression of the postcolonial subject which is ultimately a display of that power. This is expressed in the capitalist consumerism amongst

other traits which are exported to the third world as an enviable culture through the mass media under the aegis of globalisation.

The postcolonial subject thus has an identity which is not entirely indigenous to his or her homeland due to the colonial experience. But then, neither is this individual characterized as embodying the complete traits of the coloniser. Hence, the colonial experience begets a new breed of individuals in the post-colonies who are not exactly like their predecessors and also not like their colonisers. The term ‘hybrid’ was therefore coined to account for this condition of “unbelongingness” and “doubleness” (Bhabha The Location of Culture 52). Hybridity “harbours the recognition that cultures “are never unitary in themselves, nor simply dualistic in the relation of Self to Other” (Habib 752) but rather involve an act of enunciation or continuous articulation.

Another experience which dates farther back than colonialism and which all of humanity engaged in and still does, is migration. It has been termed by Jessica Hagen-Zanker to be as old as humanity itself. It is “the temporary or permanent move of individuals or groups of people from one geographic location to another for various reasons ranging from better employment possibilities to persecution” (Hagen-Zanker 4). The National Geographic Society gives it as “the movement of people from one place in the world to another for the purpose of taking up permanent or semi-permanent residence, usually across a political boundary” (6). Technological and scientific innovations in recent times have linked the world together to allow for easy access to different places on the globe. Therefore, it is much easier for people to migrate now as movement across vast spaces and distances is no longer as difficult as it used to be.

The major strain of migration in the most recent past which had hitherto been done from the West to the postcolonies for the purpose of colonisation has now been reversed although

this time, it is without the intent of colonisation. From the middle of the last century onwards, the postcolonial subject in search of opportunities to improve his social and economic status, has embarked on a journey of migration. The more frequent destination of this migration is Westward; to countries in Europe and North America. It is in light of this that Sara de la Rica, Albrecht Glitz and Frances Ortega state that: “Starting in the early 1950s, many European colonial powers (in particular the UK and France, but also Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal) lost their colonies abroad, triggering large population movements toward the mother countries from such diverse regions of the world as Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia” (4). Literary texts produced by writers from these regions have captured this experience especially in the writings of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ayi Kwei Armah, Samuel Selvon and Salman Rushdie to mention but a few.

It has been established earlier that the postcolonial subject cuts across continents and could be found in sites of former colonial exploitation. The postcolonial subject is therefore an individual who has been colonised and suffers a certain form of oppression due to this colonialism. It has also been posited that colonialism had a range of effects most of which are now felt as aftershocks. These effects include; “poverty, dependency, underdevelopment, various pathologies of power and corruption” (Said 207) amongst a mix of positive achievements. The postcolonial subject as part of a people relegated to the zone of dependency and peripherality, considered: “underdeveloped, less-developed, developing state,” (Said 207) inferior, different and with an outsider status, searches for a way out. In this search for better living conditions, self-expression and status, the individual chooses migration to the places which are presented as antithetically different, better and more-developed than his homeland hence, Europe and North America.

Historically, migration has been ongoing and characterized mankind even before the inception of social groups in form of societies. It facilitated the spread of religion, especially

Christianity and Islam and, colonialism and trading.  In Africa for instance, migration took place for trade and agricultural purposes as far back as the fourth century around the ancient empire of Mali (Shaw 4). However, migration is of different types. Broadly, internal and international as well as temporary and permanent. These migration types could be either voluntary or forced. When it is voluntary, on the international front, the migrants choose to have contact with the “majority culture” as Western culture is termed. Involuntary migration however, results in individuals changing their location unwillingly, due to situations entirely outside their control which lead to an involuntary increase in regular contact with the majority culture. Internal migration on the other hand involves a movement of people within the borders of a particular country permanently or temporarily due to economic, personal and other reasons while international migration involves a cross-border movement. People who engage in the latter type of migration relocate from one country to another for either short intervals or permanently. Both of these types of migration are instigated by three major factors. The Suny Levin Institute terms these factors the push, pull and network factors.

Push factors are those elements which propel emigration from the home or source countries and regions. They include conflict, civil strife, persecution, economic challenges and environmental disaster. Pull factors on the other hand are those elements which serve as enticers to attract the inflow of people into a receiving state. They include economic stability, employment opportunities, higher standard of living, political and religious freedom, favourable weather conditions and personal idiosyncrasies. The third factor which affects migration is the network factor. It is mostly associated with international migration and includes “cost of travel, the ease of communication, and international business trends” (Suny Levin Institute 9). The network factor is also associated with social and financial support groups. These groups have as part of their activities the provision of advice and expert knowledge on the migration process. They may or may not be on ground in the source and

receiving countries to aid new immigrants on their way. However their presence in these countries make the migration process easier. Thus the network factor can either facilitate or discourage migration.

Migration consists of three stages (Bhugra and Becker 19). The three stages of migration are the pre-migration, migration and post-migration phases. The first is characterized by the decision and preparation to move. It does not involve the actual change of physical space, rather it involves the acquiring of documents and other relevant items needed for the physical movement to occur. The second is the actual moving stage where the individual physically relocates to the new space. The final stage, post-migration, involves the “absorption of the immigrant within the social and cultural framework of the new society” (Bhugra and Becker 19). It is at this stage that new social and cultural rules and roles are learnt. This stage of learning new cultural forms is where a process of identity shift or adjustment begins for the postcolonial subject. At this time the individual begins to adjust his or her personality to fit into the new society. Because the individual (who in this case is a postcolonial subject) cannot become exactly like the citizens of the host community in which he is resident and cannot also cling to all aspects of his former life and identity in his previous society, he begins a process of hybridization. This hybridization is to re-orient the postcolonial migrant, allowing for the shedding of unnecessary and undesired cultural traits and the taking on of new ones from the host community. This is not to say that postcolonial subjects domicile in the third world as citizens in their own countries do not experience hybridization because they do albeit to a lesser extent than those who migrate. However, what this research work will focus majorly on is the hybridity of the postcolonial migrant.

Caribbeans, Asians and Africans have constituted a large statistic of migrants in the West over the years. While countries like India protest the brain drain which emigration of their skilled population is causing in the country (Khadria 6), the emigrants protest their limited

opportunities in their home countries. This is not to say that unskilled and semi-skilled Indians do not also emigrate to the West. In fact, these groups comprised the early category of migrants to arrive the shores of the United States and United Kingdom in the last century. In the case of the Caribbean islands, migration is so ingrained in its history that it is described in ‘waves’. The first involved the migration of white indentured slaves while the second was the forced migration of African slaves to the Caribbean colonies to cultivate cash crops. The third wave of migration on the islands occurred after the abolition of slave trade and involved the mass immigration of Indian and Chinese labourers on fixed-term contracts to make up for the loss of slave labour (McIntosh 9). The fourth wave of movement for these colonies is also known as modern migration and occurred after the ceding of these islands to their inhabitants by imperial powers. It saw the large scale exodus of Caribbean people to the West, mostly United Kingdom, Belgium and France, their colonising nations (McIntosh 13-19).

Africa on the other hand began to experience increased emigration to Western countries around the 1960s. Although African emigrants in the United States are not as many as those from Latin America and other places, the number began to rise in the last two decades of the twentieth century (Capps, McCabe and Fix 2). In European countries, African migrants are also found. Thus, the presence of postcolonial migrants in Western nations is fully established.

1.1.2 Hybridity: Perceptions and Meaning

Roy Stafford is of the opinion that from the beginning of the 21st century, two terms which should be at the centre of discussion are ‘hybridity’ and ‘globalisation’. “These two concepts are central to the way our popular culture is changing, as well as our sense of identity, both national and personal” (2). It is on this basis that this research paper will begin its explication of the concept of hybridity.

Hybridity, in the history of its usage, referred in a negative manner to those individuals resulting from cross racial relations and who therefore had “mixed blood.” Such individuals included the mulatto, mestizo and muwallad. They were stigmatized “as a physical representation of impure blood, and this racism long served as a tool of power that maintained that even in this blending of two bodies, just ‘one drop’ of black blood would deem the body impure and alien, an abomination” (Yazdiha 32). When the term became appropriated by decolonising movements and later on, postcolonial critics to the semiotic field of culture, it began to mean something else (Kraidy 5). Because postcolonial discourse involves the challenge and subversion of language, consequently concepts and terminologies, hybridity shed its negative undertones for positive ones.

Homi Bhabha is one of the prominent postcolonial theorists and the first to use the term hybridity in relation to the cultural status of the individual. He gives his position on the idea of language and its usage especially in the colonialist, power skewed discourse and the decolonisation of this language. He asserts that language as an aspect of knowledge has been employed by the coloniser in an exploitative manner to foster the hegemonic discourse and encourage the colonised’s acceptance and endorsement of his own domination. He also posits that this process is still ongoing and can only be displaced or interrupted when it is challenged and subverted. This is what he does with the term ‘hybridity’ as he turns the tables, giving the hybrid “a kind of superior cultural intelligence owing to the advantage of in-betweeness, the straddling of two cultures and the consequent ability to negotiate the difference” (Hoogvelt

158). Thus, his conception of hybridity will be privileged in this research work.

Bhabha in his contribution to postcolonial discourse focuses on the encounter between the coloniser and colonised. He asserts that the encounter which the coloniser and colonised have does not leave any of the involved parties unaffected. Their personalities as well as cultures take on new forms. On the part of the colonised, it is from mimicry which is never

totally and accurately done and could be for the purpose of resistance or survival. On the part of the coloniser on the other hand, it is the necessity to take on new personalities in order to enforce and demand respect, fear and obedience from the colonised (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin The Postcolonial Studies Reader 208). Thus Bhabha posits that:

Hybridity is the sign for the productivity of colonial power, shifting its forces and fixities; it is the name for the strategic reversal of the process of domination through disavowal (that is the production of discriminatory identities that secure the ‘pure’ and original identity of authority). Hybridity is the revaluation of the assumption of colonial identity through the repetition of discriminatory identity effects” (Bhabha The Location of Culture 159).

Hybridity “commonly refers to the creation of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization” (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin  Postcolonial Studies: The Key Concepts 108). It is neither the one nor the other” as it inhabits the rim of “in-between reality” (Bhabha The Location of Culture 25, 18) it is also. “an operative verbalization of ambivalence and mutability illustrating a dynamic stride of (remonstrance) and resistance in opposition to a domineering ideological and cultural colonial hegemony” (Raj 125). Prayer Elmo Raj goes on to say it is simultaneously “plural, complex, subversive, intricate and sometimes contradictory cultural interaction” (125).

Concepts which come into play in Bhabhatian hybridity include mimicry, doubleness, in-betweeness, third space and ambivalence. In discussing mimicry, Bhabha explains that there is always a skewed view of the coloniser by the colonised due to imperfect knowledge which results in a distorted imitation or representation of the former by the latter. Thus, “in mimicry the colonizer sees himself in a mirror that slightly but effectively distorts his image – that subtly and unsettlingly ‘others’ his own identity” (Bertens 208). In the contact between the coloniser

and colonised therefore, a third space of in-betweeness becomes apparent. Other than the coloniser, the colonised subject is torn between two cultures. Because the colonised has been exposed to the denigration of his culture and extolment of Western culture over time, he faces the crises of choosing which culture will have dominance in his life. There is the confusion whether to turn to the coloniser or to the indigenous. This state of ambivalence where the colonised is in both worlds at the same time results in a state of doubleness.

The third space is therefore created when the coloniser in attempting to transform the identity of the colonised creates something new which albeit familiar, is entirely different from the coloniser and also from the indigenous subject. Hence, “the ‘third space‘ envisaged by Bhabha is not an inert category of but a productive giving way to be ‘interruptive, interrogative and enunciative’ pushing further away from the polarizing and antagonistic thoughts initiating” it (Raj 126). Thus, it is this space that produces the hybrid. It facilitates “signs of identity and innovative sites of collaboration and contestation” (Bhabha, The Location of Culture 1).

A number of scholars in the discourse of hybridity cull concepts like diaspora, identity, metissage, creolization and transculturation. Although the Bhabhatian notion of hybridity is the basis of these discourses, new insights and perceptions are uncovered. Stuart Hall a postcolonial critic seems to have problems with the singular or fixed perception of culture before its contact with an external creates a third space. He postulates that: “instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact… we should think, instead, of identity as a

‘production’, which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation” (222). This provides an insight into the cultural possibility of hybridity as emergent from no fixed plane and itself, a pulsating mix of even more creative possibilities.

Anjali Prabhu brings together some of the terms mentioned above in the opening chapter of the book, Hybridity: Limits, Transformations, Prospects. Here, Prabhu attempts to

present the duality of hybridity in its theoretical and political stance in a bid to demonstrate the relationship between culture and society as well as allow for a ‘utopian’ and collective image of society. On Diaspora, she gives it as a concept which reaches back to rest on the traumatized history of slavery, forced migration, colonialism and other disadvantages connected with white supremacy and the negative representation of people of African descent. However, she critiques the loophole of this conceptualization. It generalizes Africans in different national and transnational contexts as it tends to lump them all together taking no consideration of the differences in nationality and ethnicity.

On Creolization, Prabhu recognises its focus on the present, the ‘here and now’. For her, it releases Diaspora from its essentialism of race. Unlike diasporic discourse which would distinguish  between  African,  Indian  or even  Islamic  Diasporas,  creolization  rejects  such categorization and would rather generalize. She quotes creole scholars asserting their view: “neither African, nor European, nor Asian, we proclaim ourselves creole” (Bernabe, Chamoiseau and Confiant in Prabhe 5). Drawing from Stuart Hall who rejects the notion of “scattered tribes” whose identities can be secured only in relation to a sacred homeland which they must return to, creolization for Prabhu concerns the present form of diaspora. It is associated with advancement without “blind assimilation but rather by preserving difference…and connecting with the motherland” and other diasporas in practicable ways (4). This view which creolization holds with regard to hybridity in turn poses a problem. It melts all distinctions and thus, it raises the question; on what basis is culture described since all peoples are the same?

Lastly, metissage is explicated by Prabhu. Franciose Lionnet’s perception of it comes into play here. Originally given as an enabling form of reading which takes into cognisance the various disciplines in order to foster better understanding, here, it is a “methodology of intertextuality and interdisciplinarity in analysing postcolonial realities” (8). Thus it is used to

bring together the afore mentioned concepts (creolization, diaspora, etc.) which relate to hybridity.

The three terms: diaspora, creolization and metissage when placed alongside Bhabha’s hybridity reveal something. Hybridity is concerned with assessing supposedly unitary cultures and demonstrating their fracture and instability. The hybrid state is therefore, demonstrated to be developed by dominating cultures. Thus even if the “hybrid arises from contact, it is hybridity within what was seen as unified” (Prabhu 9). Hence, she posits that hybridity for Homi Bhabha, gestures more to the unequal position of power within which it is created (9). Therefore, an individual is inclined to choose a culture which would enable him to have access to material needs rather than one which will keep him in a crippled social position. The culture which allows this access to material things is the one in the powerful position and will tend to be chosen rather than the less powerful one which is also less empowering.

In light of this, Prabhu identifies in hybridity three major positions. The first states that hybridity is everywhere and has adherents like Bhabha, Stuart Hall and Francoise Lionnet. This position represents the triumph of the postcolonial, colonised or subaltern over the hegemonic. It appropriates the cultural onslaught and modifies it for its own purposes. The second category of hybridity states that hybridity is not everywhere. Benita Parry, a critic of Bhabha’s textuality, subscribes to this idea. This position considers that it is the elite, the metropolitan who emigrates that hybridity applies to as this elite is placed in a situation where he comes in direct contact with the Western or majority culture. Hence the elite who has the opportunity to change locale is the one who has identity issues with conflict and doubleness. For Parry, hybridity makes little sense to the postcolonial subject left behind in the ex-colonies as life goes on as before. He is not exposed to anything new and so does not have to make concessions or allowances to accommodate new ideas or cultural forms. The final major position which Prabhu enumerates for hybridity is that which sees hybridity in its material reality as a history

of slavery, exploitation and colonialism inherited in terms of race. This racial identification could be voluntary or thrust upon one. All accounts of postcolonial hybridity have to contend with this history as it is its history.

This paper agrees with the first conception of hybridity’s presence everywhere, in all regions and cultures. This is because it not only celebrates cultural multiplicity by representing the triumph of the postcolonial over hegemonic situations (Bill Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin The Empire Writes Back 77), but also because cultural contact almost always results in alterations and change. Additionally, this idea conforms to Homi Bhabha’s and demonstrates that not only in coercive situations does hybridity occur but also on neutral grounds. Thus, since this research work is privileging Homi Bhabha’s notion of hybridity, the power play which influences postcolonial adoption of Western culture will come into play.

A consideration of the notions of hybridity presented by Prabhu reveals that it has contradicting qualities which are manifest in its inherent ambiguity. It is “mired in two paradoxes. The first is that hybridity is understood as subversive and pervasive, exceptional and ordinary, marginal yet mainstream… the second paradox is that hybridity’s foggy conceptual circumference, in other words its extreme openness, allows for unpredictable, arbitrary, and exclusionary closure” (Kraidy 7). In other words, this contradiction arises from its mere descriptive position as it applies to all people, postcolonial and otherwise and a consideration of it for the postcolonial subject from a theoretical viewpoint. From the descriptive position which provides a political angle, hybridity seems logical as it explains a hegemonic relationship as well as explicates a reversal of cultural onslaught. As a theory however, its fissure becomes apparent. As a concept which decries the ultimate wholeness and fixity of culture, it is somewhat puzzling to reconcile it with the idea of one fixed, unified culture coming in contact with another to result in the creation of new ones which could be third, fourth, fifth and so on. Because of this conflict within its framework, hybridity has been

criticized by scholars as being disposable or meaningless as its notion of culture ‘museumizes’ culture as a ‘thing’ whereas culture is always hybrid and in a state of flux. Stuart Hall argues this when he asserts that “difference… persists in and alongside continuity” (227); and so culture should not be described as a fixed whole whose contact with another brought on the creation of a third space as culture itself is dynamic. Hybridity is also criticized for being a form of indulgence for the elite who have the resources to theorize about it. Yet another criticism is its ability to leave unsettled issues of race and class exploitation as it lends legitimacy to corporate “global market neoliberalism.” It is criticized as a tool “of cooptation used by the power holders to neutralize difference” (Kraidy 7, 8). This means that in order to promote their goals, corporate bodies and institutions are willing to gloss over differences as well as exploitation and difficulties which may result because of this.

Despite the conflict  and  ambiguity associated  with  hybridity,  there is  a point  of convergence. An element of it which scholars seem to agree on is that contact between two or more cultures, results in the creation of a third space which is the birthing ground of new cultures. These new cultures could inculcate features of both ‘mother’ cultures. It can therefore be argued that hybridity is the co-option of select cultural forms from old evolving ones, to create a newer one which bears semblance to its older antecedents. The degree and pattern of how this inculcation is done can now determine if coercion and hegemonic discourse have come into play.  Thus, hybridity is both a renunciation and an averment of homogenization or assimilation as well as an assertion of self as personally determined and not forced or coerced. It is in light of this that for the purpose of this study, the focus will be on the effect of hybridity on the postcolonial subject.

1.1.3 Migration and Hybridity

Hybridity in recent times is a term ubiquitous with culture. Having its history rooted in postcolonial discourse and the contact between coloniser and colonised, it has long since been seen to include all cross cultural contact whether or not the active participants of these contacts still have the relationship of coloniser and colonised. From around the middle of the twentieth century, the world has seen an influx of individuals from developing countries making their way into Europe and America, to better and developed economies. The reasons for this movement range from personal quirks to asylum migration. However, it is mainly for economic and social reasons that people leave their homelands in search of better opportunities in the West.

Upon arrival in these Western countries, postcolonial subjects discover that their problems are far from over. The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent have enumerated some of the challenges which migrants face in the host societies. These challenges include hostility, resentment and fear manifested in racism, xenophobia and discrimination (3). In order to lessen some of these problems, the immigrant tends to make attempts to hasten the process of acclimatization so as to fit in more within the host community. Having established contact by changing physical space, the interplay between the two cultures (that of the immigrant and the majority culture), begins. Spurred on by pressure to make things easier by incorporating or accepting as much as possible, aspects of the ‘majority culture’, the immigrant who in this case is a postcolonial subject, begins to feel the adverse effects of internal conflict resultant from the negotiation associated with hybridity.

In reviewing the relationship between migration and mental illness, Dinesh Bhugra and Matthew Becker posit that “migration involves the loss of the familiar, including language (especially colloquial and dialect), attitudes, values, social structures and support networks”

(19). This loss is associated with feelings of grief, bereavement and guilt because of the postcolonial migrant’s awareness of what is taking place (the loss of aspects of indigenous culture). The identity of the individual which comprises race, culture and ethnicity thus becomes reshuffled. While the racial identity of the migrant remains unchanged, the cultural identity undergoes change hence demanding a new ethnicity as ethnicity is resultant from both cultural and racial identity. “Ethnic groups are composed of people who may or may not share the same race but do share common cultural characteristics, including history, beliefs, values, food and entertainment preferences, religion and language. Ethnicity typically incorporates both race and culture” (Bhugra and Becker 21).  Usually, contact of the immigrant with the host community may lead to assimilation and integration or rejection and deculturation. Therefore, to become whole again and get a semblance of order back into their conflicted lives, the immigrants take on the process of assimilation (the adoption of behaviour patterns of the surrounding culture). It is with the acceleration of this process that “a sense of belonging in their new homeland occurs” (Bhugra and Becker 21) for the immigrants as they become integrated in a way into the new society. In doing this, they are gradually becoming cultural hybrids. The majority culture thus begins to seem less threatening and more accommodating, actually lessening the challenges they face in the host community.

Although hybridity is mostly associated with cross cultural contact resulting from colonialism and migration as has been viewed earlier, it is also associated with globalisation. In its relationship with globalisation, its sphere of dominance is seen to cover every area of the world. This thought is connected to Stuart Hall and other postcolonial scholars’ views on the non-static and fluid characteristic of culture. In considering the relationship between hybridity and globalisation, the ‘dominant’ or majority culture effect is also present. The hegemonic relationship associated with coercion where non-Western peoples are presented with Western cultures as the superior alternative comes into play. This is associated with a “pronounced

awareness of culture as imperialism” (Said Culture and Imperialism 264). Here the majority culture is the Western culture which is propagated and dispersed to all corners of the earth via print media as well as the internet. This is all conveyed in the celebration of popular culture (Daramola and Oyinade 33). Hence, citizens of postcolonial countries and other parts of the world are exposed to and consciously or unconsciously begin to assimilate certain aspects of Western culture as portrayed by the media. Additionally, certain aspects of minority culture are also commodified and popularized to the world. Examples of this is adoption of the ‘hula’ contest from Fiji Islands, the idea of relaxation and vacation on sandy beaches of Hawaii and other Caribbean islands as well as the adoption of certain fashion sense which originate from Africa and Asia by people around the globe (Franklin and Lyons 72, 73).

Hybridity as a concept has both positive and negative connotations. A consideration of it only from the angle that there is an imposition of a majority culture on minority cultures does not bespeak fairness. However, it is necessary to note that hybridity as posited by Bhabha is not a one-sided affair. It does not only affect the postcolonial subject but also the coloniser, the member of the majority culture or the Westerner. The coloniser thus becomes affected by contact with the colonised and develops a different personality (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin The Postcolonial Studies Reader 208). In order to foster his authority and dominance, he is forced to assume new characteristics. With relation to migration, if the postcolonial subject is resident in a Western state where the majority culture dominates, members of this majority culture get the opportunity to understand the differences of the minority group. They also learn to appreciate the challenges faced by the minorities as well as their culture (Bhugra and Becker

22). Another aspect of the positive side of hybridity is that; not all cultural practices assimilated by postcolonial subjects are negative. Positive developments such as Western education and scientific as well as technological innovations are aspects of the majority culture which postcolonial subjects seem to have little problem accepting.  It is in light of this that it can be

seen as “complicated entanglement rather than identity, togetherness-in-difference rather than separateness and virtual  apartheid” which consists of “exchanges, crossings, and mutual entanglements, it necessarily implies a softening of the boundaries between ‘peoples’” (Ang 2,

6).

Hybridity for the postcolonial migrant is manifested in several different forms. Haj Yazdiha is of the position that: “considerations of hybridity run the gamut from existential to material, political (and) economic” implications (31). Thus it covers the entire cultural spectrum as culture is basically a ‘way of life’ and these elements cover all aspects of living. This means that the postcolonial subject and society is faced with alterations made in religious practices, food and eating habits, perception of leisure activities, values and language (Bhugra and Becker 21). Consequently, hybridity is manifested in the postcolonial subject in ways which include; beauty practices, fashion, food, politics, values, religious practices, language and philosophy which constitute the material and immaterial aspects of culture.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Hybridity is a term which has begun to have increasing importance for people around the globe in the present day. It is instigated by migration and the interconnectedness of all parts of the world as a result of technological developments. Both Phenomena find copious expression in non-literary as well as literary works across the various genres. As important as these phenomena are in the literary field, few studies such as articles by Andrea Kabore, Wandia Njoya and Yu Yan seem to have been carried out with regard to their relationship with each other and especially with a focus on the hybridity experiences of migrant and non-migrant postcolonial individuals. Existing literature tend to focus solely on one of these categories of postcolonial individuals. Furthermore, there seem to be hardly any studies problematizing these

concepts with special regard for their gendered experience and, in a comparative manner as this work aims to do. Additionally, as regards the primary texts: Lucy, The Inheritance of Loss and Americanah, copious literature such as those by Emelda Ucham, Sissel Marie Lone, Izabella Penier and Sayyed Mohammed Youssef amongst others abound. These writings have critiqued the primary texts from several theoretical positions while focusing on the subjects of these research. However, the relationship between migration and hybridity is not always demonstrated. In addition, studies seem to focus on the migration and hybridity experience of one gender without regard for the other or that of migrants without attention paid to the non- migrant and the various backgrounds or regions of these individuals. It is in light of these that this research embarks on a study of hybridity as it relates to migration in the texts under review.

The research undertakes a study of migration and hybridity in a comparative manner with regard to region, gender and migrant-status in the texts: Kincaid’s Lucy, Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss and Adichie’s Americanah. Consequently, the study goes about this by exploring the various facades, both positive and negative which are resultant effects of this process of hybridity resulting from migration. It also considers the effects of the two phenomena, touching on the various aspects of the characters’ lives which are affected; be they social, political or economic in ramification.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

This study aims at exploring hybridity as it relates to migration in the novels Lucy, The Inheritance of Loss and Americanah by Jamaica Kincaid, Kiran Desai and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It does this with the purpose of achieving a number of objectives.

a.   To establish the depiction of migration as well as hybridity in the texts under study. b.   To demonstrate the forms migration takes in the texts.

c.   To ascertain if a relationship exists between migration and hybridity in the novels. d.   To demonstrate the effects which migration has on the characters in the texts.

e.   To verify if hybridity takes place in the lives of characters in the texts who do not migrate.

f.   To ascertain if hybridity differs for the characters in the texts based on gender. g.   To determine if hybridity results in conflict for the characters in the novels.

h.   To ascertain if there is a difference between manifestations of hybridity for characters in the texts who are postcolonial migrants and those who do not migrate.

1.4 Scope of the Study

The focus of this research work is on the postcolonial characters in Kincaid’s Lucy Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss and Adichie’s Americanah. The work takes into consideration the manifestations of migration and hybridity in the lives of the characters and the effects of these on them. This is done with a consideration for both the synchronic as well as the diachronic angle with a reflection of how the older texts portray migration and hybridity and whether it differs from how the more recent ones have depicted these same phenomena.

This study is limited to only a literary examination of migration and hybridity as it relates to the postcolonial individual in the texts. It does not include a study of hybridity and its effects in Western characters or non-postcolonials.

1.5 Significance of the Study

This study, which problematizes the notions of migration and hybridity and their presentation in selected works of Kincaid, Desai and Adichie is relevant in several contexts. Its significance lies in its opening up the notions of Migration and hybridity as presented in

postcolonial novels. It does this using the three texts under study (Lucy, The Inheritance of Loss and Americanah), to cut across borders in demonstrating that hybridity occurs for all postcolonial subjects irrespective of their continental difference or region especially when they migrate.

While the study contributes to the exploration of both the positive and negative aspects of migration as well as hybridity; as the positive aspects seem to have been little explored in literature, it also serves to bridge the gap which exists in the comparison of hybridity in female and male migrant experiences. It focuses on migrant and non-migrant characters in the texts as there are few studies relating hybridity to migration which consider also, the non-migrant’s experience of hybridity. There is also no existing literature comparing the three texts, taking into perspective their peculiar Caribbean, Indian and African contexts. It is in this light that the study contributes to a re-examination of the postcolonial notion of hybridity in not just its descriptive capacity but at a theoretical level.

This research work opens up new vistas to the manner in which terms such as diaspora, creolization, transculturation and globalisation which are all related to hybridity are viewed and reviewed. This is because although already known terms, there are still hidden depths to these concepts which a critical re-examination will reveal. This research work is also relevant in the aspect of providing students and researchers in the literary field with a tool for engaging migration and hybridity in gender, postcolonial as well as other categories of literary works. The reason for this is because: “identical meanings… are found in different traditions of literature and may be thought to circulate within world literature. These are some of the things that make comparative literature possible” (Akwanya 36). The research work is therefore relevant to society by serving its interest in hybridity, especially as it relates to migration.

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