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Theory on the Move: Anowa and the Politics of Displacement

Kristina Mäki, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

This paper addresses interpretations of the theme of migration in Ama Ata Aidoo’s play Anowa in an attempt to illustrate what I have experienced as the often problematic movement of Western literary theories for application to African texts. Rooting the discussion in the text enables us to examine how the text itself is theorising about the themes and issues it raises, thus avoiding the tendency to begin with the theory and impose this onto the text. A consideration of the ways the drama deals with the themes of ‘being on the road’/the journey, Anowa’s abikuness and migratory nature, and the relationship between Anowa and Kofi Ako will reveal some of the problems involved in uncritically applying aspects of the currently in- vogue theories of the Western academy (I refer here mainly to poststructuralism and its cousin postcolonial theory) to African writing. It is my understanding that Aidoo’s insistence on confronting and acknowledging the past before moving into the future holds important lessons for poststructuralism’s advocation of identity as constructed and fluid.
As I have experienced, even at an institution dealing with specific African literatures and claiming to offer a critical perspective on Western literary theories, “the ease and complacency with which Western theories have taken over the global literary and intellectual arena” (Osundare 2002:431) is indeed pervasive. The effect is that students are being denied access to texts that theorise African literature, thereby narrowing our horizons and limiting the capacity of a literary text to increase our knowledge.
Osundare, N. (2002) “African Literature and the Crisis of Post-Structuralist Theorising” in Thread in the Loom AWP: New Jersey, pp. 39-58