Abstract
Diaspora, in Postcolonial context, refers to the notion of ‘dispersion’ which entails the connotations of a center or a locus from which the dispersion occurs. It takes into account the homing desire, which is not the same as the desire for ‘homeland’. Hybridity, in conflation with diaspora studies, refers to dismantling cultures from their totalizing specificities of cultural situations. This cultural decolonization leads towards an ambivalent space called the ‘Third Space of Enunciation’. The present study deals with Mohsin Hamid’s “Exit West” (2017) as it attempts to reveal how colonial subjects are positioned not only in relation to the Colonizer but also in relation to one another. Hence, the colonial identity is always in a state of flux and anxiety due to multi-locationality, as the home is a slippery space in the diasporic imagination. Moreover, the study deals with Hamid’s engagement with the arbitrariness of borders, as borders are discursive narratives, which further leads towards deterritorialization as dislocation and displacement of meanings and identities. Hamid, in the “Exit West”, significantly maintains the ambivalence of diaspora space where binaries of exclusion/inclusion, belonging/otherness, us/them are contested in a global context.
Authors
-
Sundus Javaid
- Assistant Professor, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Multan Campus, Punjab, Pakistan
-
Munazzah Rabbani
- Assistant Professor, Department of English, The Women University, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan
-
Sara Shahbaz
- Lecturer, Department of English, The Women University, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan
Keywords
Deterritorialization, Diaspora Space, Homing Desire, Hybridity, Mimicry, Third Space for Enunciation
DOI Number
10.35484/pssr.2021(5-I)85
Page Nos
1115-1126
Volume & Issue
v5-1