Date

2013

Author

Okuroğlu Özün, Şule

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The aim of this study is to offer an insight into discussions of spatiotemporal dimensions of diasporic subjectivity by making use of Foucauldian heterotopia, heterochrony, power and self technologies. This study analyses diasporic subjectification in Bye-Bye Blackbird by Anita Desai, The Nowhere Man by Kamala Markandaya, and Anita and Me by Meera Syal from the conceptual perspective of Michel Foucault’s heterotopia. After a thorough discussion, considerations of the roots of diaspora, heterotopic diaspora space, subjectivity, self and power technologies are put into practice in the analysis of the selected novels by South Asian diasporic writers. In this study, diaspora experience is re-evaluated through heterotopic lenses and it is claimed that heterotopic diaspora space dissolves essentializing dichotomies and boundaries that are used to define centre/periphery, belonging/non belonging, nation/diaspora and self/other. The perspective aimed at in this study attempts to illustrate how these spatio-temporal structures work, merge and create new ones in the process of cultural translation and subjectification. By using Foucauldian heterotopia, heterochrony, power-technologies and self-technologies as analytic conceptual tools, this study seeks to examine the ways in which South Asian diasporic subjectivities are processed, the motivations that have fuelled the generation of categories in Britain and what roles these succeeding generations of writers play in the evolution of the shifting constructions of South Asianness.

Subject Keywords

South Asians in literature., South Asian diaspora in literature., South Asian literature (English)., South Asia

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12615963/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/22838

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis