‘Greener Pastures’ and the Ambivalence of Migrant Encounters in Effiong Edeke’s The Migrants’ Advocate

The allure of the ‘greener pastures’ has long driven migration narratives, promising better lives and opportunities. However, behind this ideal lies the harsh realities of tensions, rancour, displacement, inequality, and exploitation. This is the thrust of this study which examines the dialectics and ambivalences of migration among developing world’s subjects in Effiong Edeke’s The Migrants’ Advocate, and focuses on the strategies by which the author probes into the conditions of the large migrant population from weak economies in their host Western countries. It explores how migration narratives subvert or reinforce the myth of the ‘greener pastures’. The study is a qualitative one and adopts the postcolonial theory as its analytical framework. Interpretive design was adopted. The text was purposively selected because of its apt inscription of migration and displacement experiences. The tropes deployed are the diaspora, survival negotiation, nostalgia, and return migration. Findings reveal that the ‘greener pastures’ is a contested ideal that obscures the complex dialectics and ambivalences of migration. By examining the tensions between aspiration and reality, this research sheds light on the complex power dynamics that shape migration discourses. Ultimately, the research argues that the notion of the ‘greener pastures’ is an illusion, a mirage, misapprehension or scam and underscores the need to rethink its myth vis-à-vis the human cost of developing world’s migration. Thus, rather than offering the much anticipated reprieve, migration among developing world’s subjects is a tale of woes, anxiety, and frustration. It is a disenchanting experience characterised by rancour, angst, displacement and regrets.

Keywords: Migration Greener Pastures Diaspora Dialectics Displacement

Authors

• Micah Okon Asukwo
  Department of English
  Akwa Ibom State University, Nigeria
  micahasukwo@aksu.edu.ng
• Dele Maxwell Ugwanyi
  Department of English and Literary Studies
  Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu
  mawell.ugwanyi@esut.edu.ng