The Psychology of the Other; Narrating Diaspora Identity and Psychic Trauma in Leila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land

Conference: The European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH2022)
Title: The Psychology of the Other; Narrating Diaspora Identity and Psychic Trauma in Leila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land
Stream: Literature/Literary Studies
Presentation Type: Virtual Presentation
Authors:
Salma Bahar, University of Chouaib Doukkali, Morocco

Abstract:

The word diaspora invokes trauma. Being positioned at the in-between space and the struggle to assert identity, attempting to rearticulate one’s existence, and negotiating being subject to othering and social discrimination all boil into the trauma hovering around diaspora characters. In Once in a Promised Land, Leila Halaby responds to Arab Americans' identity crisis in post 9/11 attacks. The novel is inscribed in Arab Anglophone fiction that documents the current cultural anxieties and deconstructs politics of identity and cultural production to voice out a juxtaposed complex projection for dual existence. Being an Arab and a Muslim in America in the aftermath of 9/11 meant being viewed with suspicion; following the storyline of Jassim and Salwa who flee Jordan to “the promised land” where their life’s walls started collapsing, Halaby projects the hostility and pressure Arab-Muslims go through in America. The novel’s significance for the study lies mainly in it being a powerful contrapuntally written novel; it brings traditional readings and writings to a crisis. The text delves into the underpinnings of the migrants' experience to grasp the architecture of discursive construction of otherness be it; bodily, religious, or racial othering and allows diaspora characters to vocalize their rich and complex existence. The paper unpacks the narratives’ social and political discursive dynamics to highlight the wholeness of the psychological struggle, it makes use of Fanon's theory to gauge the effect of sociopolitical on the human psyche and capture the psychic trauma through the characters of Salwa and Jassim.

Virtual Presentation

---

Conference Comments & Feedback

Place a comment using your LinkedIn profile


Share this Presentation