Locating the Intercultural Discourse of Leila Aboulela’s <i>The Translator</i>; Cultural Compatibility, Clash of Civilization or a Not-yet-told Story?

Abu-Shomar, Ayman

doi:10.1080/00111619.2019.1645088

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 9 publications

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“…For him, the Jihad vs. McWorld classificatory paradigm, historically standing against each other, misses the fact that culture is travelling via what he refers to as -creolisation‖. Creolisation, he proceeds, is an invisible but influential emerging paradigm operating through -the formation of new identities‖, which are -subversive of race and ethnicity‖ (5). He argues that beneath the loud and monstrous voices of nationalism lie pervasive voices of diversity and complexity.…”

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confidence: 99%

Critical Spaces of Diaspora and the Shifting of Paradigm: Negotiating Intercultural Narratives in Arab Anglophone Literatures

2020

ILHSS-20, TILEIS-20 &Amp; EABID-20 March 2-4, 2020 Istanbul (Turkey)

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The last few years have revealed a resurgence of interest in questioning the orthodox consensus regarding what has been so far believed to be a grounded paradigm of Arab-Western relations. Recently, these relations have become labyrinthine in nature inviting us to 'stop and think' of the towering socio-political and cultural contingencies involved in this encounter. The aftermath of the 'Arab Spring', in particular, has imposed paradigmatic socio-political shifts for both Arab and Western societies including massive waves of migration to the West prompting fragmentation and growing pluralism of these societies and emergence of new identities, but also new forms of conflicts, which render normative and stable discourses problematic. This requires growing demands of ever-changing needs to the insurgency and disintegration of moral obligations while negotiating with difference, hence, refusing polarising tendencies historically shaping Arab-Western intercultural encounters. For this, the adoption of the healing power of dialogism informed by 'critical spaces of diaspora' provides a rethinking-space for Arab Anglophone writers to capture the multitude of these new conditions. This essay attempts to trace the performance of this dialogic tendency as a key feature in intercultural narratives adopted by several Arab Anglophone writers. With the claim that both 'cultural compatibility' and 'clash of civilization' narratives fail to capture the current nature of the Western-Arab encounters, this essay seeks to foreground and theorise a third and a 'not-yet-told' narrative to reinstate critical cultural awareness as an antidote to dualistic tendencies

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confidence: 99%

Critical Spaces of Diaspora and the Shifting of Paradigm: Negotiating Intercultural Narratives in Arab Anglophone Literatures

2020

ILHSS-20, TILEIS-20 &Amp; EABID-20 March 2-4, 2020 Istanbul (Turkey)

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Migration and Its Discontents: Study of Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons

Jaleel

2024

JLS

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Bird Summons by Leila Aboulela has caught the attention of researchers and media people alike, for differing reasons, though there are a few common perspectives too among them. Their most common perspective is looking at the novel as an immigrant bildungsroman where the childlike immigrants come of age and try to assimilate themselves in a culture in which the hosts are generally hostile to their presence in their midst. The present study is a reading of Bird Summons from a postcolonial perspective. The research method employed was close reading of the text, and the objective of the present study was to interpret the selected text in view of the fictional representation of Muslim Arab diaspora, particularly in the UK. The finding of the research is that the plot, theme, and the narrative point of the novel are a veiled representation of migrants’ discontents with their condition in the new land, their loss of identity, and the issues they face in a foreign land, leaving everything behind, some of them even burning the boat, and feeling lost for lack of assimilation in the new society. The culturally shocked and emotionally unsettled immigrants then start looking all over thinking where they had gone wrong in their decision-making that they have to face such hardships, looking for similarities and differences in the two cultural milieus – the home culture and the host culture – and then learning to unlearn their own language. They realize that it is only the death of their birth identity which can redeem them to live a normal life. The significance of the present research lies in its contribution to the understanding of the neo-colonial, hegemonic social structures ever present in an erstwhile colonial centre, and the strategies of adjustment the diaspora population adopts to cope with the ensuing tensions.

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Locating the Intercultural Discourse of Leila Aboulela’s The Translator; Cultural Compatibility, Clash of Civilization or a Not-yet-told Story?

Cited by 2 publications

References 9 publications

Critical Spaces of Diaspora and the Shifting of Paradigm: Negotiating Intercultural Narratives in Arab Anglophone Literatures

Critical Spaces of Diaspora and the Shifting of Paradigm: Negotiating Intercultural Narratives in Arab Anglophone Literatures

Migration and Its Discontents: Study of Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons

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