Diaspora Reversed: A Post-Modern ‘Third Space’ in ‘The American Granddaughter’


Abstract

This paper explores a socio-political and cultural approach to identity-formation for the Iraqi diasporic subject. Projecting diaspora as following a fixed pattern does not serve young-generation diasporists. Ultimately, the aim of this study is projected in the possibility of experiencing diaspora in reverse, particularly in the neglected younger diasporic generation, for the purpose of recreating a subjective self-narrative away from their parents' diasporic experiences. The study of diasporic-identities will be projected in Inaam Kachachi’s ‘The American Granddaughter’, with specific focus on the young protagonist as representative of diaspora in reverse. A ‘Third Framework’ will be utilized for the purpose of allowing the construction of a possible post-modern diasporic-identity, the fluidity of which crosses boundaries rather than falls under a dichotomous choice.

Authors

Deema Ammari, Areej Allawzi, Zaydun Al-Shara

Keywords

diaspora reversed, ‘real Iraq’, Iraqi diaspora, self-narrative, ‘third space’

References

Abdelhadi, Dalia. (2007). ‘Cultural production in the Lebanese diaspora: memory, nostalgia, and displacement’. Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 35 (1): 39-62. Al-Ali, Nadje Sadiq. (2007). Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present. London: Zed Books. Al-Najjar, Mustafa. (2014). Inaam Kachachi: ‘We are experiencing a true upsurge in Iraqi fiction’. Arabic Literature and Translation. https://arablit.org/2014/04/18/inaam-kachachi-we-are-experiencing-a-true-upsurge-in-iraqi-fiction/ (Retrieved on 20 June, 2017). Baronian, Marie-Aude and Stephan Besser and Yolande Jansen. (2007). 'Introduction: diaspora and memory'. In Marie-Aude Baronian, Stephan Besser and Yolande Jansen (eds.), Diaspora and Memory: Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts, and Politics, 3-22. Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V. Chaliand, Gerard and Jean Pierre Rageau. (1995). The Penguin Atlas of the Diasporas. A. M. Berrett (trans.). London: Penguin Books Ltd. Coser, Lewis. (1992). Maurice Halbwachs: On Collective Memory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Douglas, Mary. (1975). ‘Deciphering a meal’. Implicit Meanings. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Fortier, Anne-Marie. (2003). ‘Making home: queer migrations and motions of attachment’. In Sara Ahmed, Claudia Castaneda, Anne-Marie Fortier and Mimi Sheller (eds.), Uprootings/ Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration, 115-135. Oxford: Berg. Fortier, Anne-Marie. (2005). ‘Diaspora’. In David Atkinson (ed.), Cultural Geography: A Critical Dictionary of Key Concepts, 182-187. London: I.B. Tauris. Giles, Paul. (2002). Virtual Americas: Transnational Fictions and the Transatlantic Imaginary. Durham: Duke University Press. Gilroy, Paul. (1997). ‘Diaspora and the detours of identity’. In Kathryn Woodward (ed.), Identity and Difference, 301-343. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Hall, Stuart. (1992). ‘The question of cultural identity’. In Tony McGrew, Stuart Hall and David Held (eds.), Modernity and its Futures: Understanding Modern Societies, 274-316. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hall, Stuart. (2003). ‘Cultural identity and diaspora’. In Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur (eds.), Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader, 119-131. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Hirsch, Marianne and Valerie Smith. (2002). ‘Feminism and culture memory: An introduction’. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28 (1): 1-19. Kachachi, Inaam. (2010). The American Granddaughter. Nariman Youssef (trans.). Doha: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing. Malouf, Amin. (2001). In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong. New York: Arcade Publishing. Mishra, Vijay. (1996). ‘The diasporic imaginary: theorizing the Indian diaspora’. Textual Practice, 10 (1): 415-423. Safran, William. (1991). ‘Diasporas in modern societies: Myths of homeland and return’. Diaspora, 1 (1): 83-99. Said, Edward W. (2002). Reflections on Exile and other Essays. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Shurken, Marita. (1991). Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering. Berkley: University of California Press. Snaije, Olivia. (2014). Exiled in Europe: An interview with three women writers. In Karen Philips (ed.), Words without Borders: the Online Magazine for International Literature. http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/exiled-in-europe-an-interview-with-three-women-writers (Retrieved on 20 June, 2017).