Meaning of imagined boundaries in the protagonist’s identity of Americanah, Ifemelu, by Chimamanda Adichie

Abstract

In this dissertation, we hypothesize that Ifemelu, the protagonist of Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, challenges imagined boundaries through the positionalities that she adopts in Nigeria and the U.S.A., and through the hybrid state in which she inhabits both places, a feature that characterizes the construction of her own identity. The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on the concepts of: a) positionality by Eric Sheppard, b) imagination and its relevance in massive migration flows in the current era of globalization, by Arjun Appadurai,

imagined boundaries, by Gustavo Fares and, d) cultural memory, by Azade Seyhan. The analysis has been divided into three parts, considering three geographic locations: Nigeria, the United States and Nigeria again. The most significant findings are: i) The protagonist started to forge her identity through the positionality that she adopted at her homeland. ii) In the United States, Ifemelu developed new aspects of her identity through the positionality that she adopted as a relational construct and power relations in the new geographic space, characterized by racism and in a multicultural context. iii) When Ifemelu returned to Nigeria, she revealed new features of her identity through the new positionality that she adopted. One of the main applications of this thesis is to foster the dissemination of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's literary work, mainly in academic and educational contexts.