TRANSNATIONAL BELONGING AND CULTURAL IN- BETWEENNESS: A BHABHAIAN READING OF MONICA ALI’S LOVE MARRIAGE (2022)

Abstract

Diaspora literature focuses on the issue of identity formation through migration, sense of belonging, and the process of negotiation between the cultures of the homeland and the host country. Therefore, this study examines transnational belonging and cultural in-betweenness in Monica Ali’s Love Marriage employing Bhabha’s perspective of identity. It examines how second-generation diasporic subjects negotiate identity between inherited cultural traditions, family expectations, and the socio-cultural norms in the host society. The novel sheds light on the generational conflicts in the Bangladeshi-British Ghorami family, showing how first-generation parents and their children react differently to the migration, cultural transformation, and social assimilation. It deals with the interaction of race, class, and power in the formation of belonging experience, demonstrating how interracial relations and exposure to seemingly liberal social structures reproduce minor exclusion. The findings of the study demonstrate that Love Marriage does not represent identity as something fixed and unique but rather a negotiation process that occurs in the hybrid spaces, which implies that diasporic belonging is formed through dialogue, compromise, and constant re-definition of self in the context of transnational and multicultural spaces.