ABSTRACT

Even though cosmopolitanism still proves to be a fruitful and relevant concept in our globalised world, new theories have contested and revealed the shortcomings of the original term in different respects. New theories of cosmopolitanism acknowledge the need to situate the concept and include in the discussion the problematic notions of gender and race, among other categories that have been suppressed from the dominant Euro-centred narratives. The Afropolitan consciousness outlined in Selasi's "Bye-Bye: Babar complicates and destabilises essentialist categories of nation, belonging and identity, but refers to privileged middle-class experiences of migration from Africa to the West. The parents eventually return to Africa, "immigrants leave", and their children, "the Afropolitans," stay in the West, which offers a further distinction between generations. While Afropolitanism redresses the balance concerning Africans speaking for themselves, the problem lies, echoing Emma Dabiri, in the fact that "we still do not hear the narratives of Africans who are not privileged".