Fusionism and relocation in resistance to the exilic centers that marginalize the uprooted: Bharati Mukherjee's diasporic obsession Dr. Bhaumik Rajib Asst Professor, Dept of English Alipurduar College, Alipurduar Online published on 2 July, 2015. Abstract In anthropological context the term Diaspora has ethnographic implications. Here it functions as a critical discourse and as a site of difference and becoming. Diaspora involves the conflicted space of centre-periphery, home-location, self-other, nation and post-nation, citizen-outsider, original-hybrid, sameness-difference, rooted-uprooted and so on. All these conflictual combinations collide before intersection; these are multi-referential and multi-dimensional. What emerges from such construction of the complexity is that the diasporic components have homogenous, collective identities bound together by shared feelings of alienation and dislocations and nostalgic affiliation with the past. But the imperatives of such affiliation are different for the emergent new space for enunciation. While the main thrust of expatriation is on the native country and traditions left behind, immigration lays all emphasis on the cultural life of the host country. The expatriate dwells on the reminiscent nostalgia of the past, while the immigrant celebrates his present in the new country. Instead of hyphenation, exilic or mere immigrant status, she focuses on the immigrants’ true search for empowerment, dignity, their identity and a successful survival in the settled country. Her staying on in America and cherishing the ‘melting pot’ metaphor of America made her a writer of immigrant literature and a writer of Indian diaspora literature. Top Keywords Space, centre-periphery, home-location, self-other, alienation, dislocation, nostalgic affiliation, expatriation, immigrant, diaspora, melting pot. Top |