eISSN: 3023-3267 editor@aimjournals.com
All Journals
Submit your article

Critique Open Research & Review

Open Access Peer Review International
Open Access

Hybridity And Identity Crisis In Postcolonial South Asian Fiction

DOI https://doi.org/10.55640/corr-v04i02-02
PDF
Zaheer Shafqat 1 , Syed Muhammad Abbas Rizvi 1 ,
4 Department of English Language and Literature, University of Sargodha, Pakistan
4 MPhil English Literature, Riphah Institute of Languages and Literature, Pakistan

Abstract

Postcolonial South Asian fiction persistently interrogates the complexities of hybridity and identity crisis emerging from colonial histories and their lingering socio-cultural consequences. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of Homi K. Bhabha, Stuart Hall, and Frantz Fanon, this study examines how selected South Asian novelists portray fractured subjectivities, cultural displacement, and negotiated identities. The research focuses on key literary texts including Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, and The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. Through qualitative textual analysis, the study explores how characters navigate the liminal spaces between tradition and modernity, homeland and diaspora, colonial inheritance and postcolonial nationalism. The findings reveal that hybridity in South Asian fiction is not merely a cultural mixture but a dynamic site of negotiation that simultaneously produces empowerment and psychological fragmentation. Identity crisis emerges as a central thematic concern, often manifested through language conflicts, generational tensions, and diasporic alienation. By situating literary narratives within broader historical and cultural contexts, this research highlights how postcolonial South Asian fiction redefines identity as fluid, relational, and continuously reconstructed. Ultimately, the study argues that hybridity functions as both a strategy of resistance and a source of existential uncertainty, reflecting the region’s complex engagement with colonial modernity and globalization.

Keywords

Hybridity, Identity Crisis, Postcolonialism, South Asian Fiction, Diaspora, Cultural Negotiation

References

📄 Alhaisony, A. G. M. (2022). Home, belonging and multiculturalism in twenty-first-century British South Asian fiction, University of Exeter (United Kingdom).
📄 Amoamo, M. J. A. o. T. R. (2011). "Tourism and hybridity: Re-visiting Bhabha’s third space." 38(4): 1254-1273.
📄 Bah, A. J. I. J. o. E. and Studies (2024). "Exploring the characteristics of diasporic literature: A comprehensive analysis." 6(3): 106.
📄 Bhalla, T. A. (2008). Between history and identity: Reading the authentic in South Asian diasporic literature and community, University of Michigan.
📄 Christou, A. (2006). Narratives of place, culture and identity: second-generation Greek-Americans return'home', Amsterdam University Press.
📄 Elsbach, K. D. and D. J. J. o. m. s. van Knippenberg (2020). "Creating high‐impact literature reviews: An argument for ‘integrative reviews’." 57(6): 1277-1289.
📄 Ferdous, S. (2021). Partition as Border-Making: East Bengal, East Pakistan and Bangladesh, Routledge India.
📄 Gangwar, D. and P. J. C. S. Bhardwaj (2024). "Unravelling the Multifaceted Narrative of India: A Comprehensive Analysis of Cultural Complexities, Political Dynamics, Historical Context, and Magical Realism in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children." 3(7): 62-72.
📄 Georgiou, M. J. R. e. d. m. i. (2010). "Identity, space and the media: Thinking through diaspora." 26(1): 17-35.
📄 Imade, D. and A. J. I. J. f. M. R. Kadam (2023). "Postcolonial reflections in South Asian literature." 5(05): 1-6.
📄 Luke, C. and A. J. E. T. Luke (1999). "Theorizing interracial families and hybrid identity: An Australian perspective." 49(2): 223.
📄 Mabardi, S. J. C. S. (2000). "Encounters of a heterogeneous kind: Hybridity in cultural theory." 13(1): 1-20.
📄 Maha, S. J. I. J. o. L., Linguistics, and Humanities (2025). "Cultural Hybridity and Linguistic Pluralism in World Literature: A Comparative Study of Code-Meshing Techniques in Translingual Fiction." 1(1): 1-8.
📄 Meighan, P. J. J. D., Indigenous, and M. Education (2023). "Colonialingualism: Colonial legacies, imperial mindsets, and inequitable practices in English language education." 17(2): 146-155.
📄 MKHELKHEL, H. (2025). The Hybridization of Cultural Identities: The Impact of Digital Technologies in Cultural Representation in the Global South and the West, University of Biskra.
📄 Naik, S. A. (2019). Negotiating Identity in Postcolonial Space: A Critical Study of Selected South Asian Diasporic Fiction, Central University of Punjab.
📄 Prima, K. K. (2024). Navigating ambivalence and exile: a multidimensional analysis of migration in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines, Brac University.
📄 Rani, M., et al. (2025). "Echoes of Empire: Tracing Colonial Legacies and Subaltern Struggles in Contemporary Marginalization through A Passage to India." 3(3): 1477-1484.
📄 Uhuru, F. A. "Frantz Fanon, Alienation, and the Psychology of the Oppressed."
📄 Umar, A. D., et al. (2024). "Critical review of postcolonial theory of Homi Bhabha’s hybridity: A study of “The Location of Culture”." 4(1): 15-19.
📄 Young, R. J. (2005). Colonial desire: Hybridity in theory, culture and race, Routledge.

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 > >>