Body as Capital in African Migritude Narratives: Pornotroping in Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street and Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon

Abstract

Over twenty years of the 21st century, a virtuosic litany of literary works by African migritude 
writers has emerged. It is a new millennium that has seen the dissolution of national sovereignty 
and physical boundaries, with voluntary and forced migratory movements leading to what 
Pellicer-Ortin and Tofantsuk (2019) dubbed as “the age of migration”. With the dissolution of 
national boundaries, a plethora of new literary themes have evolved. A significant thematics in 
these texts is the trafficking and commodification of the African girl-child for profiteering. This 
essay, therefore, examines and establishes the presence of commodification and objectification 
of the African girl-child body as capital for financial benefits in the selected narratives. The 
women serve as objects of capital to their diasporan benefactors who act as pimps by selling their 
bodies to male bidders. More importantly, the study interrogates Ann McClintock’s conception 
of “whorearchy” and “sisterhood in silence” as strategies deployed by dehumanized female 
characters to liberate themselves.  The study adopts Cathy Caruth’s “Trauma theory” and Everett 
Lee’s theory of “Push/Pull Migration” as theoretical framework. The choice of these theories is 
hinged on the premise that the issue under investigation has multi-dimensional angles of old/new 
identities of characterization, traumatic and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder of the characters. 
The second theory adumbrates the push and pull factors that aids Africans migrating en-masse to 
Europe on daily bases. Besides exposing the unspeakable inclination of some desperate diaspora 
African pimps towards the pornotroping of naive African girls that are cleverly deceived and 
coerced into prostitution in Europe, the study concludes by cautioning unsuspecting women, 
parents and guardians about the challenges inherent in the “Japa syndrome” pulling our young 
girls from the African soil to the west. This will enable them avert the horrific tales presented in 
the selected texts.