Re-imagining Home Spaces: Pre- and Post-9/11 Constructions of Home and Pakistani Muslim Identity

Abstract

Fictional representations of home and identity by second-generation writers of Pakistani origin have received increasing attention, especially in the post-9/11 scenario, with its attendant reductive representations of Islamic fundamentalism. With an aim to rebut “9/11 fictional narratives” that reinforce public rhetoric in the West and thereby equating Islam with terrorism, Shamsie’s novels confront these negative international attitudes towards Muslims and Islam. By locating her characters in their ancestral homeland as well as abroad, Shamsie engages with issues related to identity and migration that began to change as a result of post-9/11 mainstream public narratives about suicide bombing, religious fanaticism, terrorism, jihad and Islamic fundamentalism. Linking these two foci (transnational movement and Muslim identity in the 9/11 context), I will be concerned here to highlight the wide range of experiences and dilemmas associated with Shamsie’s Pakistani and migrant characters’ sense of identity, their struggles with hyphenated identities, and the sometimes xenophobic imaginary of the white population abroad. I specifically address the ways in which stigmatisation on the basis of ethnicity has morphed into stigmatisation on the basis of faith, illustrating how xenophobia has taken the form of Islamophobia.