Shifting Perceptions of Migration in Senegalese Literature, Film, and Social Media

In Shifting Perceptions of Migration in Senegalese Literature, Film, and Social Media, Mahriana Rofheart proposes a revised understanding of Senegalese migration narratives by asserting the importance of both local and global connections in recent novels, hip-hop songs, and documentary videos. Much previous research on migration narratives in French from Africa has suggested that contemporary authors often do not consider their countries of origin upon departure and instead focus on life abroad or favor a global perspective. Rofheart instead demonstrates that today’s Senegalese novelists and hip-hop artists, whether living in France or Senegal, express connections to communities both in Senegal and abroad to cope with the traumatic experience of emigration and return. Ultimately, Rofheart asserts that Senegalese national identity remains significant to the way these authors and artists respond to migration.In her examination of novels in French, hip-hop songs in French and Wolof, and online documentaries, as well as the social and economic currents that influence the texts’ production and circulation, Rofheart engages with scholarship on transnationalism, postcolonialism, popular culture, and new media studies. The study’s initial chapters address well-known works from the mid-twentieth century, including Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure, as well as the films of Ousmane Sembène, and Djibril Diop Mambéty. This book then demonstrates how novelists such as Aminata Sow Fall and Fatou Diome, as well as hip-hop artists including Simon and Awadi, break with previous tragic depictions of migration in novels and films to present successful responses to the contemporary context of frequent emigration from Senegal.

[This book] is an ambitious bid to document evolving patterns and perceptions of Senegalese-based migration across time and genre. . . .It is both helpful and pleasing to see careful critical engagement with such details as the distinction between hip-hop and rap . . . Indeed, Rofheart’s determined and persuasive desire to carve out a space for these more contemporary platforms of expression is perhaps its most valuable contribution and is sure to prompt future scholarly directions., This examination of an impressive array of Senegalese films, videos, literature, and music provides for a discerning analysis of the complex relationship between diasporic and national communities, the articulation of local and national politics, and how in turn these conversations have been influenced by globalized migratory and technological networks. Ultimately, the observations and insights made in Shifting Perceptions of Migration in Senegalese Literature, Film, and Social Media serve to elucidate the complexity of the contemporary landscape of Senegalese politics and society., While fully conversant with postcolonial theory and recent studies of Francophone African literature, Rofheart hews her own critical path, taking the reader along as she accompanies the Senegalese migrant of the past century from the Sahara to Dakar to Paris and finally into the transnational and inter-cultural beyond of YouTube and other social media.

Mahriana Rofheart is a lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.