Title:
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Contemporary adolescent fiction from the South Asian diaspora : multicultural children's literature of the millennium and the potential for bibliotherapy
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The study of children's literature from the South Asian diaspora has been mostly
overlooked by postcolonial studies, cultural studies and children's literature studies
alike. This thesis responds to this academic oversight and it is not only the first study to
solely explore the diasporic experience presented in these novels, but also opens up an
area of research which has great cross-disciplinary potential.
At the centre of this thesis is the argument that existing theories of identity
negotiation offer only partial explanations of how young, second generation individuals
negotiate their cultural identities, and that children's literature, by contrast, illuminates
an alternative means of identity formation. There is no definitive cultural identity model
which focuses solely on how post-migrant generations, including foreign-born migrant
children, negotiate their cultural identities. Yet the fiction this thesis examines demands
the need for precisely such a model. Drawing on the works of Homi Bhabha, A vtar
Brah and Stuart Hall, the model that emerges from the fiction is best identified as what I
have termed: Overlapping Space.
Engaging with a wide range of postcolonial, cultural and sociological theorists,
the study focuses on novels published since 2000 and identifies how they offer a model
of Overlapping Space identity formation. Engaging with Bali Rai's What's Your
Problem? and Kavita Daswani's Indie Girl the thesis begins by identifying how issues
of race and racism are still prevalent to contemporary concerns. Developing these
concerns, the study draws on Marina Budhos's Ask Me No Questions and Mitali
Perkins's First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover to investigate how media
influences post-9/l1 have affected young peoples' cultural self-identities. Shifting the
focus from imposed 'home'land cultural alienation to self-imposed 'homeland' cultural
estrangement through abjection, the study identifies the psychological effects of visiting
ancestral homelands as depicted in Vineeta Vijayaraghavan's Motherland and Mitali
Perkins' Monsoon Summer in order to demonstrate the experience of emotional
situational ethnicity through unexpected enculturations. Continuing with the discussion
of emotional situational ethnicity, using Narinder Dhami's novelization Bend it Like
Beckham and Baljinder K. Mahal's The Pocket Guide to Being an Indian Girl, this
thesis explores how young second generation members of the South Asian diaspora
navigate between 'peer' and 'parent' zones and analyses the significant role that
subcultures can play in the approval of 'transgression'. Lastly, by focussing on Tanuja
Desai Hidier's Born Confused and Bali Rai's The Last Taboo, this thesis continues its
exploration in 'transgressive' behaviours and analyses the dating and interracial
relationship cultural concerns presented in these two novels. By exploring these themes,
issues and concerns, this study ultimately foregrounds each text's potential for
bibliotherapy and demonstrates that, as well as making significant contributions to
literature and cultural studies, these novels serve an important social function as well.
Consequently, via the universalising bibliotherapeutic function of these novels, this
thesis ultimately argues that these novels not only foreground and legitimise
Overlapping Space identities but actively help build these identities as well.
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