Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/27660
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dc.contributor.authorBetik, Bailey-
dc.date.accessioned2018-03-06T07:36:38Z-
dc.date.available2018-03-06T07:36:38Z-
dc.date.issued2018-02-
dc.identifier.citationBetik, B. (2018). Behind the backs of borders : diaspora microspace in Imtiaz Dharker’s poetry. Antae Journal, 5(1), 6-16.en_GB
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/27660-
dc.description.abstractA self-described ‘“Scottish Muslim Calvinist’”, poet Imtiaz Dharker uses her collections to vividly depict everyday life ‘between borders’. Dharker’s cultural identity, one indubitably rooted in hybridity, displays itself in the shattering of binaries between Other and indigene throughout her body of work. However, factoring in the changing sociopolitical climate and attitudes toward Muslim women in the Western world, heightened in the aftermath of 9/11, and comparing her collections I Speak For the Devil and The Terrorist at My Table, one can see Dharker’s imagery of hybridity drastically shift. To better unpack the notion of existing in a perpetual life between borders, I propose a notion of “diaspora microspace” that combines Avtar Brah’s definition of a ‘diaspora space’ with Homi Bhabha’s ‘inter’ of the Third Space. Diaspora microspaces then act as frames of examination for the manifestations of diaspora narrative in everyday spaces of identity—where collapsed borders echo through quotidian spaces like dinner tables, doorways, and the home. Pre-9/11, these diaspora microspaces in the former collection begin as thresholds of optimistic negotiation, understanding, and translation, but in the latter, post-9/11, more often end in mistranslation, power struggle, and misrepresentation. Drawing upon Brah and Bhabha’s aforementioned theories alongside Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, I will chart how Dharker blurs Other-indigene and public-private binaries with this imagery, as well as how her agency over her disaporic cultural identity waxes and wanes.en_GB
dc.language.isoenen_GB
dc.publisherUniversity of Malta. Department of Englishen_GB
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessen_GB
dc.subjectPakistani diasporaen_GB
dc.subjectPoetry -- Explicationen_GB
dc.subjectPoetry -- 21st century -- History and criticismen_GB
dc.subjectGroup identity in literatureen_GB
dc.titleBehind the backs of borders : diaspora microspace in Imtiaz Dharker’s poetryen_GB
dc.typearticleen_GB
dc.rights.holderThe copyright of this work belongs to the author(s)/publisher. The rights of this work are as defined by the appropriate Copyright Legislation or as modified by any successive legislation. Users may access this work and can make use of the information contained in accordance with the Copyright Legislation provided that the author must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the prior permission of the copyright holder.en_GB
dc.description.reviewedpeer-revieweden_GB
dc.publication.titleAntae Journalen_GB
Appears in Collections:Antae Journal, Volume 5, Issue 1
Antae Journal, Volume 5, Issue 1

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