Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted The Psychology of the Third Space: Fragmented Hybrid Identities in Lyrics Alley, The Map of Love and In the Eye of the Sun(The University of Sydney, 2024-09) Fagehi, Nehad Ali; Boer, NienkeThis dissertation underscores the psychological facets of Homi Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space, an arena where culturally hybrid identities are formed and negotiated. With acknowledgment of the transformative potential of cultural hybridity in shaping dynamic identities and challenging established power structures, this thesis, rather, examines its frequently neglected psychological consequences, particularly for female characters who navigate conflicting cultural and gender expectations. Through the analysis of three positions —insider, outsider, and insider-outsider— embodied respectively by three principal characters from three different texts, Soraya Abuzeid in Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela, Anna Winterbourne in The Map of Love, and Asya al-Ulama in In the Eye of the Sun, both authored by Ahdaf Soueif, the study demonstrates that the Third Space, while facilitating hybrid identities and providing new cultural possibilities, concurrently presents considerable psychological burdens. Soraya, an insider navigating the intersection of Sudanese traditions and Western modernity, confronts the combined demands of patriarchal norms and colonial standards, exposing the psychological intricacies that accompany these interactions. Anna, a British outsider attempting to assimilate into Egyptian culture, experiences alienation from her colonial origins and encounters estrangement in her adopted society, underscoring the fragility of cultural belonging. Finally, Asya, an insider-outsider reflecting both Egyptian and Western traits, grapples with self-doubt and the psychological dissonance of reconciling contradictory cultural paradigms, exacerbated by her opposition to systems of patriarchy. Ultimately, this study concludes with an emphasis on the duality of the Third Space as a site of both potential and conflict as it extends discussions of hybridity from its liberatory possibilities to its psychological ramifications, particularly for women in colonial, postcolonial, and globalised contexts. Through its nuanced exploration of identity, culture, and gender, this thesis attempts to offer fresh insights into the complex interplay of cultural hybridity in literature.27 0Item Restricted The Othered ‘Other’ in Cross-Cultural Encounters: Redefining Homi Bhabha’s Theory of Third Space in the Case of Arab American Women’s Narratives Before and After September 11, 2001(Saudi Digital Library, 2023-03-21) Al Ghamdi, Alaa; Mohanram, Radhika; Beeston, AlixThe narratives produced by Arab American women authors inhabit a unique in- between place within the clash between the West and the East. Binary political, racial, cultural, and gendered elements are at stake when Arab American women negotiate their ethnic, hybrid and gendered identity. This, eventually, leads them to negotiate aspects of their identity in what Homi Bhabha terms the Third Space of encounter between different groups of power, where both groups are offered a space for communication, articulation, and negotiation to articulate their identities, resulting in demolishing binary oppositions and superiority- inferiority relationships. However, given the complicated historical and contemporary clash between the two worlds, gaps in Bhabha’s theory are evident in the case of contemporary Arab American women narratives. The intersectional nature of their experience as Arab, American, woman and writer intensifies their ambivalent space between the two worlds, marking them as the Othered Other and placing them at the margin of both centres, the American society, and the Arab American community. Thus, my PhD project argues against the utopian tone of Bhabha’s definition of Third Space, reveals the gaps using the narratives of Arab American women and redefines it to cover the intersectionality of Arab American women identities. This thesis reveals the limitations of Bhabha’s theory of Third Space as it oscillates between the genres of fiction and non-fiction while highlighting the different immigration status of the characters in the examined texts. This thesis draws its temporal parameters between the periods before and after September 11, 2001 (i.e., 1990s to the 2010s), as this timeframe witnessed the emergence of a solidified Arab American identity in the face of the dominant discriminatory discourses resulting from the various political and social clashes between the Arab world and America at the time.15 0