Heterotopic (dis)placement in Elias Khoury’s Awlad al-Ghetto : Ismi Adam : writing as reclamation of place

Abstract

This paper focuses on the heterotopic spaces “of” and “in” the titular book, explored through the analysis of the everyday socio-spatial practices of Adam, the main character. Not only is he the narrator of his own story, but he also foregrounds the importance of narrating his own story himself. His act of narration of his experience in an Israeli camp in occupied Palestine and as a refugee in New York is a reclamation of his identity and voice. In order to do so, Adam announces full “ownership” of his book, by performing its spatiality: he breaks its structure, interrupts its flow by using intervening brackets, selects its content, and follows no linearity in the succession of events or the division of chapters. This paper invokes Michel Foucault’s study of heterotopic spaces as a starting point. To concretise the investigation of the camp space and its effect, including its internalisation, on its inhabitants, I rely on Giorgio Agamben’s exploration of the said space as a state of exception. A spatial analysis of both the physical and the social dimension of the spaces present in the novel accentuates the camp’s transgressive potential. Finally, Henri Lefebvre’s triadic process of the production of space and Margaret Kohn’s study of heterotopia as sites of resistance are explored in context of the book Adam is writing.