alienation rather than empowered by a presence in the fluid reality of everyday life. The
constitution of the nation as already in some way transnational circumvents this binary”
(2007b: 5).
What is clear from the foregoing is that within the postcolonial geography, there are
anxieties over the place of the nation state in an age that is increasingly defined and
influenced by the dynamics of migration and migrancy. The natural response with
relation to the implications of positionality, therefore, is to fashion, both creatively and
conceptually new tropes that can favourably and adequately provide one with the
understanding of the times within a global spectrum of existential politics. Thus in
fighting for the soul of the postcolonial nation state, the concept of transnation comes in
handy for a proper integration of the nation into the ambience of relevance and primacy.
This is why transnation in Ashcroft’s further explication becomes:
The embodiment of transformation: the interpolation of the state as the focus of power, the
erasure of simple binaries of power, the appropriation of the discourses of power, and the
circulation of the struggle between global and local. But most importantly, it is the fluid,
migrating outside of the state that begins within the nation (2007b:2).The urge to challenge the nation state to a dynamism and transformation that rises to the
occasion of the present world, and which is expressed through the abstraction of
“transnation” can, therefore, be said to find creative alliance in Serote’s History is the
Home Address. It also explains why the analysis of the text will be largely guided by the
idea of the transnation as espoused by Ashcroft. From an apparent stand point of the
concept, there is the possibility of charging transnation with some measure of intellectual
fantasy and ambition. But this is where the question of utopia and the necessity of social
transformation come up particularly with respect to literature.
The idea of utopia or utopianism in this context allows a creative liberty in literature and
authorizes the possibility of thinking upon the horizon of potentiality.^80 In other words,
the creative artist or writer utilizes the liberty of the imagination to express possibilities
80
It must be admitted that the use of Utopia in the context of this chapter is different from the meaning it
appropriates in the previous chapter. Essentially it is used here based on its reputation for its instrumentality
in engaging with imaginative creativity for social transformation.