https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.026
Mobility and Cultural Configurations in Palestinian Novels and Memoirs: A Cliffordian Approach
LABEEBA M
Assistant Professor in English
Government Polytechnic College, Manjeri
Research Scholar
Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College, Affiliated to Calicut University
DR. ANUSREE R S
Assistant Professor in English
Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College, Affiliated to Calicut University
Abstract: In developing culture and identity, mobility and migration have played a major role throughout human history. Migration has, for ages, greatly influenced human survival, progress, and journeys forward. The American anthropologist James Clifford, in his book Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, describes the evolution of movements that are constantly changing as a process. In connection with anthropological experiences discovered in many parts of the world, he presents metaphors of movement. This paper attempts to interpret the concept of movement through Palestinian experiences. When viewed in this context, mobility assumes a more complex meaning.
The paper examines the dynamics of mobility and cultural formations as represented in the fictional works Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani and Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury, as well as in the memoirs A Rift in Time: Travels with My Ottoman Uncle by Raja Shehadeh and I Was Born There, I Was Born Here by Mourid Barghouti. The study draws on the theoretical perspectives of James Clifford, particularly those articulated in Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century.
When interpreted through Palestinian experiences, travel and migration are not merely sources of knowledge or discovery. Instead, they become an endless condition imposed upon people displaced from their homeland. While mobility is often celebrated elsewhere as a form of freedom, for Palestinians migration is frequently reduced to forced relocation, exile, restricted border crossings, and fragmented worlds. The paper thus highlights how Palestinian narratives reconfigure mobility as a condition marked by displacement, loss, and the persistent negotiation of identity.
Keywords: Mobility, Culture, Roots, Routes, Freedom of Movement, Exile, Borders
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