Paper long abstract:

This paper will argue that current conceptions of diaspora (with their discursive emphasis on dislocation) are inadequate in that they invite us to overlook or efface place. Exploring recent examples of African writing in Britain, from Jackie Kay's Glasgow and Leila Aboulela's Aberdeen, to Jack Mapanje's Scarborough, it asks what (if any) difference place makes to the politics of representation within a 'devolving' diasporic context. It goes on to suggest that such a focus must not only pay attention to alternative sites of literary production and representation, but to alternative sites of reception and readership beyond London. If it is the case that interpretations of diasporic writing are predominantly informed by metropolitan reading formations, what might a new emphasis on 'local' readers in Africa and the UK contribute to understandings of a 'global' formation like the African diaspora?