RETURN MIGRATION AS A TRANSFORMATIVE POSSIBILITY: NEW HYBRIDITY IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S AMERICANAH

Abstract

The article attempts to critically engage with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanahby using the ‘new hybridity’theory, which has been promoted in recent studies of African migration and return. The new hybridity perspective suggests that return migration can be used as the basis for a hybridized identity that is made by combining the migrant's experience in the foreign country with the transformative power of the homeland. This article draws on Ernest Cole's seminal work about migration and return. Itexplores how Americanahstages the process of migration, arrival, and return to show that return is significant when worldliness gained overseas is coupled with the ability to transform at home. The analysis highlights the precarity that impels return, the creation of hybridizedidentities, and the difficulties that complicate reintegration, and finds that Americanahis a nuanced example of how return migration can also be a catalyst for individual and societal change.