Representation of muslims in the west : alterity, diaspora and identity in selected contemporary novels by immigrant muslim women writers

Abstract

Muslims living in the West face numerous challenges. On the one hand, the Western assumptions which are shown in different types of stereotypes and communal prejudices influence Muslims' lives and, on the other, diaspora affects their identities. These challenges make Muslim identity unstable between a sense of belonging to the culture of origin and a sense of adaptation of the host culture. Consequently, Muslims in the West live in between two cultures, constantly negotiating their identities. Thus, this thesis pivots on representing Muslim groups within Western societies in fiction by three cu1tura1ly deracinated contemporary Muslim women writers, exploring the postcolonial key concepts of identity, diaspora and alterity. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the challenges that Muslim characters face; to explicate how marginality influences them; and to explore the reasons and how they negotiate their identities in diaspora in the following selected novels: Umm Zakiyyah's If I Should Speak (2000) and Muslim Girl (2014) from the USA; Randa Abdel-Fattah's Does My Head Look Big in This? (2005) and The Lines We Cross (2016) from Australia; and Naima B. Robert's From Somalia with Love (2008) and Boy vs. Girl (2010) from the UK. To do so, this qualitative and non-empirical research is conducted in a descriptive-theoretical analysis, using the selected novels as primary sources and library and online critical materials, such as books and journal articles, as secondary references. The selected writers' novels would further supply sufficient evidence on the forming of identity and identity conflicts that arise due to the contact between essentialism, diaspora and hybridity, and the fact that Muslims in the West are known for cultural diversity by examining the different and various cultures that are represented. Since in America, Australia and the UK Muslims are from different continents, countries, backgrounds and cultures, it is hoped that a rich cultural knowledge of their similarities and diversities would be elicited from this study.