The colonial history of Africa has seen the establishment of an educational system that was inspired by, if not modeled after, that of Western Europe. Is that not expatriation, if expatriation is to reside for any period of time in a country other than your own? I find it difficult to understand the distinction being drawn here. The Wilentz article focuses on “those who seek exile for personal/cultural reasons” (160). Wilentz makes it clear that there is a distinction between exile and expatriation, although also adds that exile is different again from banishment. But what is exile? Is it a state of existence forced into being by the actions of someone else, or is exile self-imposed as a response to social constraints? The thing about self-exile, to me, is that by definition it is self-imposed and can therefore be reversed, regardless of whether exile occupies a physical or mental space. Wilentz explores Our Sister Killjoy as a rebuttal of exile as “relief from the societal constraints of national development and freedom to live in a cultural environment conducive to creativity” (158). All of our readings this week have addressed travel in some way, be it Sissie’s journey to Europe, or the notion of exile presented in both Wilentz and Sterling.
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