Contesting Cultures, Unsettling Geographies in Diaspora’s Liminal Space

Abstract

Existing literary studies on migration and diaspora have mostly concentrated on issues affecting the homeland, questions of identity, memory, belonging and longing, and the politics of location across borders. Cross-sub continental comparison between south Asians and West African migrants’ lived experiences seem to be less under the radar. However, since diaspora space represents an intersection of cultures, peoples, religions and psychic processes, this paper attempts to comparatively explore the processes that plunge migrants into an unsettling liminal space of unwelcome using Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers from South Asia and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah from West Africa. The engagement of these works from both divides is to explore the contours inherent when people are dislocated from their homeland attempting to navigate their ways in the new world. The impetus is to examine the geographical peculiarities that heighten the tension of migrants on one hand and the contest of cultural beliefs especially, religious practices that portend a distortion of identity, alienation and create tension between characters in the novels. The study divulges that the perception of the migrants about the flora and fauna from both subcontinents are similar and it heightens the feeling of alienation in diaspora on one hand and on the other, the differences in cultural systems create a tension especially among the characters of Islamic background. It is concluded that for Muslims living in the west, religio-cultural conflict is major signifier in the contests that are inherent in diaspora space.

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