Alienation and estrangement in Dinaw Mengestu's All Our Names.
In this article I explore issues of negotiating cultural identity in new geopolitical spaces as presented in Dinaw Mengestu's All Our Names. I examine the portrayal of a liminal character living in Uganda and America and how the author narrates his daily experiences of negotiating identity in order...
| Publicado en: | Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Vol. 58; no. 1; pp. 25 - 35 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Tydskrif vir Letterkunde
2021
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=151088099&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 151088099 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0041476X 162I jtl: Tydskrif vir Letterkunde issn: 0041476X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 2021 vid: 58 iid: 1 pid: 71603 pub: Tydskrif vir Letterkunde artinfo: ui: 151088099 10.17159/tlv58i1.8210 ppf: 25 ppct: 10 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.2MB tig: atl: Alienation and estrangement in Dinaw Mengestu's All Our Names. aug: au: Kwamboka Openda, Ruth affil: Embu County Secondary School in Eastern Kenya su: Mengestu, Dinaw, 1978- Geopolitics Cultural identity Cosmopolitanism Racism sug: subj: Mengestu, Dinaw, 1978- Geopolitics Cultural identity Cosmopolitanism Racism keyword: alienation cosmopolitanism cultural identity hybridity racism ab: In this article I explore issues of negotiating cultural identity in new geopolitical spaces as presented in Dinaw Mengestu's All Our Names. I examine the portrayal of a liminal character living in Uganda and America and how the author narrates his daily experiences of negotiating identity in order to underscore the power of hierarchies of ethnicity, class, race, and nationalistic discourses at play in determining who belongs and who does not. I analyse the ways in which names are used as narrative strategy to show that identity is never singular or fixed but plural and continuous. I explore how, through Isaac's unnaming, naming, and renaming, Mengestu contests the fixity of names and identity by indicating naming as a processual act and how a person's identity is layered and thus cannot be fully contained within a single marker. Drawing upon the concepts of hybridity, third space, and cosmopolitanism, I demonstrate how subject position and cultural identity are not fixed into definite categorical distinctions but are fluid concepts. Mengestu does not only raise possibilities of belonging beyond the confines of a nation or community, but also presents a cosmopolitan world where negotiation and belonging is difficult because of power differences, racism, marginalisation, and discrimination. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Tydskrif vir Letterkunde is the property of Tydskrif vir Letterkunde and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Tydskrif vir Letterkunde holder: Tydskrif vir Letterkunde dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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