Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction. The World at Home: Post-Multicultural Writers as Neo-cosmopolitan Mediators
- 1 Who Counts as Human within (European) Modernity?
- 2 Vernacular Cosmopolitans
- 3 The Serial Accommodations of Diaspora Writings
- 4 Indigenous Cosmopolitanism: The Claims of Time
- 5 The Cosmopolitanism in/ of Language: English Performativity
- 6 Acoustic Cosmopolitanism: Echoes of Multilingualism
- Conclusion. Back to the Future and the Immanent Cosmopolitanism of Post-Multicultural Writers
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Name Index
- General Index
3 - The Serial Accommodations of Diaspora Writings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction. The World at Home: Post-Multicultural Writers as Neo-cosmopolitan Mediators
- 1 Who Counts as Human within (European) Modernity?
- 2 Vernacular Cosmopolitans
- 3 The Serial Accommodations of Diaspora Writings
- 4 Indigenous Cosmopolitanism: The Claims of Time
- 5 The Cosmopolitanism in/ of Language: English Performativity
- 6 Acoustic Cosmopolitanism: Echoes of Multilingualism
- Conclusion. Back to the Future and the Immanent Cosmopolitanism of Post-Multicultural Writers
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Name Index
- General Index
Summary
“Remember, it's an in- between space. Neither here nor there. It is dangerous.”
(Badami 2006, 110)Always becoming, will never be Always arriving, must never land Between back home and home unfathomable, is me— By definition: immigrant
(Mootoo 2001, “Mantra for Migrants”)“And now,” Tsunami went on, “what about Sinhala being declared the official language? Isn't that discrimination against everyone who doesn't speak and write Sinhala? Tamils? Muslims? Burghers— everyone who communicates in English. When you practise wholesale discrimination against people, the result is war.”
(Gooneratne 2006, The Sweet and Simple Kind, 312)The Dubious Consolations of Diaspora Criticism
As stated in the introduction, diaspora criticism has changed from the days when migration meant that one stayed put. Now that return journeys are part of the pattern, the dynamics of belonging have changed between diasporic groups, individuals and nation- states. Questions remain concerning the extent and duration to which writers are pressured to convey diasporic histories or represent diasporic communities, as well as how these demands affect women in particular. As well, without invoking the full range of complexities associated with the Sapir- Whorf theory,1 how does one convey another languagemeaning system within the monolingualism of English- language writing? While this chapter cannot provide definitive answers to such questions, they do animate the analyses of the writers discussed here. To support the contention that diaspora criticism needs to be anchored in temporal and spatial specificities, this chapter will focus on three diasporic women writers who are linked by being “South Asian” in complex ways. Anita Rau Badami was born in India in 1961 and immigrated to Canada in 1991. She has published four novels: Tamarind Mem (1996), The Hero's Walk (2001), Can You Hear the Night Bird Call? (2006) and Tell It to the Trees (2011). Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland in 1958, was raised in Trinidad and moved to Canada in 1977. She began her career as a painter and video maker and published her first collection of short stories, Out on Main Street, in 1993.
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- Post-Multicultural Writers as Neo-cosmopolitan Mediators , pp. 53 - 70Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2017