migrancy and cosmopolitanism within this context of African exile experience? At what
point does return strike us as necessary? The chapter hopes to undertake an exploration
of these concerns through the examination of Odia Ofeimun’s London Letter and Other
Poems and Tanure Ojaide’s When it no Longer Matters where you Live (1998).
As has been discussed in the theoretical chapter to this research, globalization means
different things to different people. While some regard it as the consequence of the
tripartite history of trade, colonialism and nation state (Michael Murphy 2006:139),
others insist that it should be best read as the consolidation of economic and business
internationalism which increasingly renders the nation state prostrate in obsolescence
(Liam Connell 2006:167). This is besides the sundry and other insights which link the
concept to the antagonism of spiritualism and secularism; or at other times the rise and
presumed universalism of English Language and the other cultural undertones that such
assumption signifies (Stan Smith 2006:1-2). Related to that is the continual criticism of
the concept for its holistic cultural direction which does more to impose Americanism on
the rest of the world than it allows for the cross-fertilization of world cultures (Alberto
Martinelli 2003:97). Having turned into a fiercely contested concept no less for the
controversies surrounding its historical origin than for what it signifies in principle and in
practice, it is not surprising that various schools of both sceptics and enthusiasts have
emerged with passionate commitment to the articulation of their take on globalization.
Martinelli (96), for instance, identifies three conceptual axes of globalization:
- ‘Hyperglobalizers vs sceptics’ where the key distinction concerns the degree
of novelty of globalization and its impact on nation-states 2. ‘Neoliberals vs neo-
Marxists and radicals’ where the key points are the balance between positive and
negative impacts of globalization and its truly global or western hegemonic
character; and 3. ‘Homogenization vs heterogeneity and hybridization’ which
focuses on the cultural dimension of globalization.
Globalization more often than not also comes across as a phenomenon that serves to
consolidate the polarization of the old axes of the centre and the periphery, the haves and
the have nots, the margin and the centre, and perhaps most importantly, the North and the
South. But it has also become apt to transcend the lines of permutations so as to engage