Migration Literature and Hybridity
Also by Sten Pultz Moslund MAKING USE OF HISTORY IN NEW SOUTH AFRICAN FICTION: An Analysis of the Purposes of Historical Perspectives in Three Post-Apartheid Novels LONDON: Migrant City
Migration Literature and Hybridity The Different Speeds of Transcultural Change Sten Pultz Moslund
Sten Pultz Moslund 2010 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-25146-5 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-32130-8 ISBN 978-0-230-28271-1 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230282711 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Transferred to Digital Printing in 2011
To Marie and Martha
Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 Part I A Critical Re-Engagement with the Theorisation of Hybridity and Becoming 1 From Celebration to Problemisation 29 2 Forces of Sameness and Difference in Organic Hybridity 48 3 Forces of Sameness and Difference in Intentional Hybridity 66 Part II The Speeds of the Migrant Hero and Hybridity Discourses in Bharati Mukherjee s Jasmine, Jamal Mahjoub s The Carrier and V. S. Naipaul s The Enigma of Arrival 4 The Migrant Hero s Incredible Speed in Bharati Mukherjee s Jasmine 101 5 Mongrel Speeds, Slow Danes and Telescopic Gazes in Jamal Mahjoub s The Carrier 136 6 Fast and Slow Becomings in the Migrant s Vision in V. S. Naipaul s The Enigma of Arrival 173 7 Conclusion 215 Notes 227 Bibliography 235 Index 245 vii
Acknowledgements The realisation of this book has been possible only with the help and support of a number of individuals to whom I wish to express my gratitude. I am grateful to Roy Sellars and Lars Ole Sauerberg for their many readings and re-readings of chapters, for their kindness, motivation, guidance and criticism. I wish to thank Susan Bassnett for supporting my ideas from a very early stage and for her warm hospitality at the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick. I thank David Dabydeen for his criticism and comments on the chapter on The Enigma of Arrival and for the many enjoyable meetings in his office. I also especially want to thank my colleague, Søren Frank, for his many invaluable comments, suggestions and words of cheer along the way, and for being such a wonderful friend. I wish to express my thankfulness to Forskningsrådet for Kultur og Kommunikation (the Danish Research Council for the Humanities) for its financial support which eventually led to the writing of this book. Lots of thanks are due to Tabish Khair and Sven Halse for their critique, assistance and good advice. I also thank the editors of two anthologies for allowing me to use bits and pieces of material in this book from my previous articles: Difference, Otherness and Speeds of Becoming in Transcultural Migration Literature and Theory published in Susan Yi Sencindiver, Maria Beville and Marie Lauritzen (eds.): Otherness: A Multilateral Perspective (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2010) and Danish Identity and the Migrant Hero s Hybridising Gaze in Jamal Mahjoub s The Carrier published in Mirjam Gebauer and Pia Lausten (eds.): Migration and Literature in Contemporary Europe (Munich: Martin Meidenbauer, 2010). Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to Marie for her love, her care, and for her unfailing support and encouragement. viii