Black Diasporic Subjectivity and Lacanian Lack of Home: A Reading of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a re-examination of literary representations of Black diasporic subjectivity and loss of home using Lacanian psychoanalysis. Traditionally, loss of home in the African context has largely been seen as disruptive of Black diasporic subjectivities, and thus widely regarded as a traumatic experience. Drawing on Jacques Lacan’s subjectivation process, the article argues that home is a fundamental lack of (Black) diaspora – a forever lost object-cause of desire – whose loss triggers an unending diasporic desire for home. By reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2017), the article examines continual disruptions of Black diasporic subjectivities in the wake of various displacements and their reconstruction via Lacan’s subjectivation. Situating Americanah in the contemporary discourses of transnationalism, the article challenges conventional understandings of loss of home by arguing that this diasporic lack of home enables diasporic creativity, inducing creative day-to-day forms of diasporic homemaking in the host land.

KEYWORDS:

• Black diasporic subjectivity
• home
• Lacanian lack and desire
• acculturation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Muhammad Zameer Nawaz

Muhammad Zameer Nawaz is a PhD scholar at the International Islamic University Islamabad and a senior lecturer at Namal University Mianwali. This article is a part of his PhD thesis under the supervision of Dr Akhtar Aziz.

Akhtar Aziz

Akhtar Aziz is an assistant professor at department of English, Faculty of Languages and Literature, International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan. His main areas of interest are discourse analysis, stylistics and critical theory.