Author ORCID Identifier
0009-0009-3361-9655
Date of Award
8-7-2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
First Advisor
Jay Rajiva
Second Advisor
Renee Schatteman
Third Advisor
Christopher Kocela
Abstract
This dissertation postulates “diasporic trauma” as a theoretical framework to assess the psychopathological condition of the Global South diasporic subject through a synergy between the poststructural configuration of culture and the psychoanalytical estimation of the traumatized psyche. Voluntary and involuntary migration due to the movement of colonial and globalized capital has historically played a significant role in the dynamics of changing social identity and in relations that formed, un-formed, and reformed colonial/postcolonial communities. Despite politico-cultural and economic marginality in the borderlines of nation-states and national discourses, the cultural hybridity of these groups has challenged the supremacy of Western modernity and the ethnocentric pride of nativist traditions. I argue that the destabilizing of such hegemonic grand narratives translates into a psycho-affective condition that coincides with their trauma of dislocation from homelands and assimilation into host lands. My dissertation constructs an intersection between the theoretical positions of Bhabha (hybridity and Third Space), Caruth (belatedness and death drive), and LaCapra (middle voice approach of historical inquiry) to assess the trauma underlying the dissonant history and contingent temporality of immigrant/migrant subjectivity. In doing so, I exhibit how diasporic trauma, which pivots on the synthesis between such positions, can effectively investigate the trauma experience and trauma history of displaced communities of the Global South. To verify this framework's applicability, this dissertation executes a cultural and psychopathological analysis of the Parsi Zoroastrian community. I do so by collaboratively studying fictional works by Rohinton Mistry, Firdaus Kanga, and Bapsi Sidhwa, scholarly and fictionalized history, and an interview with Arzan Sam Wadia (a former president of the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America), who is dynamically involved with Parsis in the West and East. Thus, my dissertation interrogates the existing critical debates on diaspora and trauma studies, opens a new avenue of postcolonial trauma assessment, and contributes to socio-anthropological studies by illuminating an under-researched ethnic migrant community.
Recommended Citation
Banerjee, Abhik, "The Diasporic Unconscious: Trauma, Parsi Zoroastrian Identity, and Global South Displacement." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2024.
https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/300
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