Literature from the Peripheries: Refrigerated Culture and Pluralism

217 Pages·2023·2.019 MB·English

by  Anjum Khan, Shubhanku Kochar

Literature from the
Peripheries

Literature from the
Peripheries
Refrigerated Culture and Pluralism
Edited by
Anjum Khan and Shubhanku Kochar
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Khan, M. Anjum, editor. | Kochar, Shubhanku, editor.
Title: Literature from the peripheries : refrigerated culture and pluralism / edited by
Anjum Khan and Shubhanku Kochar.
Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022046206 (print) | LCCN 2022046207 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781666927535 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781666927542 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Culture in literature. | Minorities in literature. | Ethnic groups in
literature. | Group identity in literature. | Cultural pluralism in literature. |
LCGFT: Literary criticism. | Essays.
Classification: LCC PN56.C85 L58 2023 (print) | LCC PN56.C85 (ebook) |
DDC 809/.8—dc23/eng/20221027
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046206
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046207
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Contents
Introduction 1
Anjum Khan and Shubhanku Kochar
1 Colonial Encounters and Cultural Genocide: A Postcolonial
Textualization of Ferdinand Leopold Oyono’s The Old Man
and the Medal 11
Zuhmboshi Eric Nsuh
2 The Anglo-Indian Community and Its Cultural Aporia: Reading
the Works of Allan Sealy’s The Trotter-Nama: A Chronicle 27
Medha Bhadra Chowdhury
3 The Traces of Dystopian in Postindependent Manipuri Poetry 43
Neelima B. and Saji Mathew
4 Cultural Refrigeration through Cinema in the Age of Globalization:
From Hollywood to Nollywood 55
Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah
5 Subaltern Cosmopolitanism: The “Parankis” of Postcolonial Kochi 65
Anupama Nayar
6 Unseen, Unheard, and Unacknowledged: An Eco-Cultural
Reading of Benyamin’s Goat Days in the Age of the Anthropocene 81
Risha Baruah
7 The Idea of Minor Literature by Deleuze and Guattari with Reference
to Naga Identity, Psyche, and Victimization of Indigenous
Communities in Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home:
Stories From a War Zone 95
Sindhura Dutta and Asijit Datta
v
vi Contents
8 The Influence of West Indian Cultural Values on Collective and
Individual Identities in Brown Girl, Brownstones and Praisesong
for the Widow 111
Renée Latchman
9 Mainstreaming the Marginal: Cultural Extermination and Tribal
Resistance in Ranendra’s Lords of the Global Village 127
Asis De
10 Passing and Caribbean Identity in America in No Telephone
to Heaven by Michelle Cliff 143
Denise M. Jarrett
11 “American Dream Versus Nightmare”: Migration, Minority
Culture, and Magic in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress
of Spices 157
Munira Salim
12 Coloring Culture, Cosmopolitanizing Identity: Shades of
“Otherness” in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah 169
Maitrayee Misra
13 Passing: Trauma and Technique—An Inquisitive Reading
of Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing 185
Prachi Behrani and Vinaya Kumari
Index 201
About the Contributors 203
Introduction
Anjum Khan and Shubhanku Kochar
WHY THIS BOOK?—BACKGROUND
The research interest in cultural minorities and ethnically or racially dis-
criminated groups has hatched this idea to discuss and discourse the plight
of marginalized cultures and communities. There are non-literary books and
journals discoursing and debating social, political, economic, anthropologi-
cal, and historical aspects related to marginalized or minority cultural groups;
however, there is, more or less, a dearth in literary analysis related to this sub-
ject. The present book which is titled Literature from the Peripheries is one
of its kind as there are hardly any assorted perspectives on multiple minority
communities in the same volume. Though there are few titles on marginalized
cultures, minority communities, and so on, they either are focused only on
one community or a particular geography. However, this book is a multidi-
mensional volume consisting of narratives from the rubble of various cultural
histories and literary texts.
CRITICAL INTERVENTION
There are very few books on minority cultures that have inspired and driven
the idea for this project. For instance, Routledge Handbook of Minority
Discourses in African Literature by Tanure Ojaide and Joyce Ashuntantang
(2020) accumulates rich critical investigations concentrated in African lit-
erature about the oppressed and the marginalized. Similarly, The Palgrave
Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities by Gabrielle Hogan-
Brun and Bernadette O’Rourke (2019) is an in-depth reference book pro-
viding profiles of several fewer known languages and communities. The
1
2 Anjum Khan and Shubhanku Kochar
mini-narratives of these less-known and undiscovered cultural communities
require scholarly and academic engagement.
Multiculturalism and pluralism in tandem with liberal democracy have
witnessed different seasons—ranging from the summer of assimilation to the
winter of racism. “Generally, liberal theories of multiculturalism, or liberal
nationalism in this context, focus on the complex relationship between national
identity and liberal ideals (autonomy and tolerance)” (Roach 36). There are
studies that deconstruct the facade of pluralism and reveal the stark reality.
After Pluralism: Religion, Culture, and Public Life edited by Courtney Bender
and Pamela E. Klassen and published by Columbia University Press (2010)
is an interesting academic read explaining pluralism and also examining its
shortfalls. Likewise, William A. Galston’s Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat
to Liberal Democracy published by Yale University Press, 2018, is an intel-
ligent estimation endorsed with facts about the recent trends in multicultural
countries. The Pluralist Imagination from East to West in American Literature
by Julianne Newmark published by Nebraska University Press (2014) decodes
the idea of harmony in multiplicity with reference to a group of eclectic writers.
Once Greece and Rome dominated the rest of the world scores of centuries
ago, now America, Russia, and China are leading the other countries providing
a clear example of center moving to the margin and the margin becoming the
center. Therefore, the interplay between the center and the margin or majority
and minority accentuates the history of cultures and civilizations. However, at
present, the flood of migrants, the drought of social acceptance, and the volca-
nic eruption of nationalism pose several challenges to the survival of relegated
cultures. Sir Peter Ustinov in his forward to Parallel Cultures: Majority/Minor-
ity Relations in the Countries of the Former Eastern Bloc employs phrases
like “Virus of bigotry” and “lunatic theory of ethnic cleansing” reflecting the
atmosphere of the twenty-first century where “panick” and “concern” are inter-
changeable. Cultural imperialism is as offensive as political colonization.
Not all the democracies or multi-ethnic countries bind together by any
international law or policy. “The manner in which the dialectic between the
individual bound by the obligations of citizenship and the right of the same
citizen to promote the culture of his or her minority group plays out differ-
ently from country to country” (Beakerman and Kopelowitz 12). There are
Governments that bring laws barring citizenship to certain ethnic and reli-
gious groups. Further, there are also countries where the state justifies the
persecution of a particular group or community. “Powerful States with indif-
ferent attitudes towards their international obligations face no significantly
harsher punishment for cultural genocide than they do for other human rights
transgressions” (Finnegan 12). The law of state overrides the law of nature
and discrimination aids in the politics of identity.
The political terms “united” and “union” also fail to remind the state that
diversity is the rule of thumb, and majoritarianism is just demographics.
Introduction 3
Region, language, and race are often mistaken for nationalism and nation-
hood. Loyalty to a nation is not synonymous with loyalty to a monoculture
or one race. Cultural hegemony subverts the sectional cultures confining to
liminal spaces. Similar to renewable and non-renewable resources, cultures
are also renewable and non-renewable. When cultures draw state vested
interest, they are revised and renewed like “revival of Sanskrit” language in
India. Unfortunately, there are several cultures that fade away without rescue,
re-claim, or state intervention. The need for cultural renaissance and inclusive
cultural ecosystem becomes ever more essential.
The minority groups are considered as foreigners, monsterized, demon-
ized, and become scapegoats. When the binary division of a society is major-
ity and minority, then one becomes the persecutor and the other victim. The
binary opposites like insider/outsider, majority/minority, and persecutor/vic-
tim prevail in a rapidly growing populist social order. The effect of majority
and minority is discrimination, oppression, and so on.
Sometimes the minority governs the majority for instance in Rhodesia
when the native blacks even after independence were not bestowed with equal
opportunities. The cultural hegemony combined with political power reigns
and overcomes to nullify the large number of majority. Further, the United
States which is a model nation of multiculturalism also exhibits inequality
and racism. “The United States is beset by systemic inequality between ethnic
groups” (Molina and et al. 226). Evidently, the glory of cultures is eclipsed
by power politics and egotistical interests.
Terms like “melting pot,” “mosaic,” and “salad” are theoretical in narrow-
ing the gulf between insider and outsider. “Diversity is a fact of modern life in
individual countries and in individual human beings” (Wieland-Burston16).
However, multiculturalism and heterogeneity become breeding grounds for
different challenges.
Native, indigenous, and tribal communities also endure the pangs of com-
munity and cultural suppression. Indigenous communities require cultural
autonomy and lack state intervention. Indigenism has evolved as a concern
in the postcolonial world. “Threats to indigenous cultural survival have domi-
nated the discourse on indigenism” (Mako 192). The endangered indigenous
culture, upsurge of xenophobia, and rapidly growing cultural politics lead to
conceptualization and enquiry.
EXPLAINING THE RUBRIC—REFRIGERATED CULTURE
Ever since the creation of the universe, human desire and human imagina-
tion have always constructed and perceived this world as divided between
the powerful and the powerless. The one who rules actually decides the
terms of both domination and oppression. The mighty always tries to control