Tracing Afropolitan Roots in the Economic Spectrum: Analyzing Diasporic Identity in Maisy Card’s These Ghosts Are Family

The reformation of diasporic identity has been previously intertwined in the domains of nation and culture. According to Taiye Selasi’s notion of Afropolitanism, diasporic identity is framed by individual experiences, mobile lifestyle and cultural hybridity rather than being confined to a single fixed national identity. The current research challenges the predominant focus on cultural and national affiliations in the formation of diasporic identity, arguing that such identities are largely embedded in the economic spectrum. In this regard, I chose to analyze the novel, These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy card (2021) to dismantle the previous notion of Afropolitanism by arguing that diasporic subjectivity is rooted in the economic structure and conditions rather than cultural or individual experiences. The findings suggest that Abel Paisley, Stanford Solomon and their family reframed their identities primarily around economic conditions in the pre- and post-colonial phases in Jamaica. The economic roots became a center to the formation of family relationship, sense of belonging and diasporic identity rather than any cultural or national affiliations.