Between Borders and Belonging Female Identity Politics in Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows

Abstract

Kamila Shamsie as a transnational writer portrays the characters who are struggling for their identities in the modern world. Her treatment of the theme of identity politics is not specified to any region or any community and appears to have universal application. This research work analyzes how the cosmopolitans suffer the devastation and endure the rising conflict of ideologies and leads reader to understand the psychological situation of modern man. Shamsie explores identity politics through her characters narrating their experiences of these issues faced owing to conflict in ideology and how this phenomenon lands people in dilemma of dubious identity in different regions of this globalized world. The Political aspects of Burnt Shadows unveil the strategies of powers in establishing identity politics by the atrocities and devastation in the occurrence of events through large span of novel. The current work scrutinizes the issue of identity which is surrounded by propaganda of identity politics when the Eurocentric cosmopolitans face identity crisis due to power politics. Identity Politics arose due to the differing ideologies of members. It has originated to imply extensive array of radical action and speculating initiatives in shared experiences of unfairness of members of firm social groups. The goal of identity politics is to keep the political autonomy of certain relegated system within its framework.

Keywords: Fluid Self, Hybridity, Cultural Displacement, Identity, Third Space