Postcolonial Intellectuals: Exploring Belonging Across Borders in Igiaba Scego's <i>La mia casa è dove sono (My Home Is Where I Am)</i>

Sandra Ponzanesi*, Maria Auxiliadora Castillo Soto

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This article focuses on the life writing narratives of diasporic writers in Europe, such as the Italian writer of Somali descent Igiaba Scego, who, through her writing and public role, manages to create powerful interventions on issues of belonging, diversity, and creativity, contributing to a renewed understanding of gender knowledge and cultures of equalities in localized as well as global contexts. This article focuses on her role as a writer as well as a postcolonial intellectual, as she is not just a spokesperson for her community, nor simply a promotor of universal values, but someone who straddles complex positionalities in their location in imperial–colonial orders. We align ourselves with the notion of postcolonial intellectuals as those who speak truth to power on issues of cultural integration and gender equalities). In her autobiographical work titled La mia casa è dove sono, published in 2010, Scego draws a subjective map of different places inhabited by her family: Somalia, Italy, and Great Britain, contributing to the understanding of unbelonging and transnationalism through topics of migration, biculturalism, gender, race, and identity.
Original languageEnglish
Article number209
Number of pages12
JournalSocial Sciences
Volume14
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Mar 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 by the authors.

Funding

This research was supported by the 101073012 EUTERPE HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01 Project.

FundersFunder number
EUTERPE HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01 Project101073012 EUTERPE HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01

    Keywords

    • Biculturalism
    • Culture of equalities
    • Gender knowledge
    • Memory studies
    • Migration
    • Postcolonial intellectuals
    • Transgenerational storytelling
    • Transnational authors

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