Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

This essay examines South Asian American writer Jhumpa Lahiri’s literary engagement with the re-Orientalization and sexualization of a collective subject described as Indian diaspora within the context of contemporary consumer culture. The essay explores the relationship between Lahiri’s best-sel...

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Main Authors:	Asl, Moussa Pourya, Nurul Farhana Low Abdullah
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2017
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11627/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11627/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11627/1/13966-52945-1-PB.pdf

id	ukm-11627
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-116272018-05-06T13:42:46Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11627/ Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake Asl, Moussa Pourya Nurul Farhana Low Abdullah, This essay examines South Asian American writer Jhumpa Lahiri’s literary engagement with the re-Orientalization and sexualization of a collective subject described as Indian diaspora within the context of contemporary consumer culture. The essay explores the relationship between Lahiri’s best-selling novel, The Namesake (2003) and its contemporary society by taking the point of view that diasporic literary writing is an example of a Foucauldian social apparatus—a new form of governmentality—that was used for the production of American nationalism after the events of 9/11. Here, we expose the material and ideological specificities that formulate a particular group of women as powerless consumers in the context of the post-cold war period. More precisely, we focus on the ideological elements of the routine consuming experiences of these women to unpack the manner in which the macropolitics of economic and political structures influence the micropolitics of the everyday experiences of Indian immigrants in the capitalist society. In Lahiri’s fiction, the Indian woman’s body—in its both first- and second- generation types—is figured as a deliberate site of economic and erotic excess that fundamentally complies with the contemporary heteronormative ideology of patriarchal capitalism, wherein the woman is essentially treated as the archetypal consumer. In effect, as the essay further argues, Lahiri’s fiction dances to the tune of Western marketing demands of production and consumption. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2017-05 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11627/1/13966-52945-1-PB.pdf Asl, Moussa Pourya and Nurul Farhana Low Abdullah, (2017) Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 17 (2). pp. 54-68. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/967
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	This essay examines South Asian American writer Jhumpa Lahiri’s literary engagement with the re-Orientalization and sexualization of a collective subject described as Indian diaspora within the context of contemporary consumer culture. The essay explores the relationship between Lahiri’s best-selling novel, The Namesake (2003) and its contemporary society by taking the point of view that diasporic literary writing is an example of a Foucauldian social apparatus—a new form of governmentality—that was used for the production of American nationalism after the events of 9/11. Here, we expose the material and ideological specificities that formulate a particular group of women as powerless consumers in the context of the post-cold war period. More precisely, we focus on the ideological elements of the routine consuming experiences of these women to unpack the manner in which the macropolitics of economic and political structures influence the micropolitics of the everyday experiences of Indian immigrants in the capitalist society. In Lahiri’s fiction, the Indian woman’s body—in its both first- and second- generation types—is figured as a deliberate site of economic and erotic excess that fundamentally complies with the contemporary heteronormative ideology of patriarchal capitalism, wherein the woman is essentially treated as the archetypal consumer. In effect, as the essay further argues, Lahiri’s fiction dances to the tune of Western marketing demands of production and consumption.
format	Article
author	Asl, Moussa Pourya Nurul Farhana Low Abdullah,
spellingShingle	Asl, Moussa Pourya Nurul Farhana Low Abdullah, Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
author_facet	Asl, Moussa Pourya Nurul Farhana Low Abdullah,
author_sort	Asl, Moussa Pourya
title	Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
title_short	Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
title_full	Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
title_fullStr	Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
title_full_unstemmed	Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
title_sort	circulation of the discourse of american nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in jhumpa lahiri’s the namesake
publisher	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate	2017
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11627/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11627/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11627/1/13966-52945-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T20:00:46Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T20:00:46Z
_version_	1777406833393139712

Circulation of the discourse of American nationalism through allegiance to consumer citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

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