Impact of Migration Spaces on the Prostitute Character in On Black Sister Streets

Abstract

Migration has a traumatic effect on individuals as they are in a foreign space, more so on female persons. The paper interrogates the complex ways in which migration intersects with social factors such as gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality to shape experiences for migrant characters in African literature. In On Black Sisters' Street, Chika Unigwe explores the complex realities of migration through the lives of four African women trafficked to Belgium to work as prostitutes, foregrounding the often-unspoken challenges and trauma associated with migration. This paper explores how the prostitute character navigates foreign and urban spaces, particularly as an immigrant, and how space both enables and restricts her movements and agency. Drawing from Hubbard’s view that the construction of space shapes both human sexuality and the identity of places, Persak and Vermeulen describe space as a nexus that focuses on the dynamics of prostitution, drawing on Hubbard’s (1997) view that the construction of space shapes both human sexuality and the identity of places. The study adopts Luce Irigaray’s poststructuralist feminist concept of “women on the market,” which frames women as commodities in a system of exchange, while also drawing on Kimberlé Crenshaw, Intersectionality theory to explore how overlapping systems of gender, class, race, immigrant status, education and other social categories further compound the commodification and marginalisation of women within the selected African novel. This research uses purposive sampling to identify relevant texts and a qualitative approach to analyse and present its findings. The paper aims to highlight the critical perspectives on immigrant characters as portrayed in the literary works of African female writers.