Between Here and Nowhere: Migration, Belonging, and Nationality
in Segun Afolabi’s Goodbye Lucille” interrogates the complex realities of
Nigerian migrants in Europe, exploring the interplay of history,
identity, and transnational mobility. Afolabi’s characters, led by
Vincent, traverse Berlin’s alien streets, precarious employment, and
fleeting relationships, embodying the condition of belonging neither
fully at home nor entirely abroad. Employing New Historicism and
contemporary diaspora theory, the paper traces how colonial legacies,
fragmented governance, and structural inequalities continue to shape
migratory trajectories and social marginalisation. Gendered
experiences, leisure practices, and relational improvisation emerge as
critical strategies for negotiating agency within constrained spaces.
Metaphors of stasis, most vividly captured in Vincent’s “swimming to
nowhere,” articulate the tension between imagined futures and
structural realities, exposing the psychological, social, and economic
dimensions of displacement. By situating literary analysis alongside
historical and transnational frameworks, the study demonstrates how
Goodbye Lucille illuminates the precariousness, liminality, and
resilience of African diasporic life. Migration, in Afolabi’s rendering, is
both literal and metaphorical—a negotiation of hope, identity, and
belonging within globalised, uneven landscapes. The novel thus offers a richly textured lens that enables readers to examine contemporary
diaspora, revealing how personal agency, historical memory, and
socio-political forces converge in the everyday lives of migrants.
