A Feminist Political Philosophy of African Diasporic Literature on Gender, Exile, and Belonging

The global phenomenon of forced migration has generated extensive scholarship within political philosophy. However, the gendered dimensions of displacement remain significantly undertheorized. From John Rawls to Michael Walzer and Joseph Carens, mainstream migration theory has largely constructed the migrant as an implicitly universal and male subject, thereby rendering displaced women philosophically invisible at moments of acute political vulnerability.
This paper addresses this theoretical gap by bringing feminist political philosophy into dialogue with third-generation African diasporic literature. It argues that the literary imagination of displaced African women constitutes a form of political-philosophical knowledge that extends beyond the limits of abstract theory. Drawing on the works of Hannah Arendt, Seyla Benhabib, Iris Marion Young, and Oyèrónkẹ Oyěwùmí, the study engages literary texts such as The Shadow King (2019), We Need New Names (2013), Ghana Must Go (2013), and What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky (2017).
Adopting a feminist literary political-philosophical methodology, the paper treats literary texts not as mere illustrations of theory but as independent sites of philosophical reflection capable of articulating dimensions of experience that conceptual analysis alone cannot capture.
Findings reveal that third-generation African diasporic literature exposes the gender blindness of mainstream migration theory, foregrounds the intersectional exclusions experienced by displaced African women, and reimagines alternative politics of belonging that extend beyond liberal frameworks of citizenship and rights.
The study concludes that African diasporic literary imagination is not merely a cultural archive but an epistemically generative philosophical resource. It recommends the decolonization of feminist political philosophy as essential for adequately theorizing African women’s diasporic experiences, arguing that genuine belonging requires not only inclusion within existing political frameworks but a fundamental rethinking of the concept of belonging itself.