My PhD dissertation, entitled 'Diasporic Narratives of the Household: A Comparative Study of Writings by Catalan-Moroccan and British Pakistani Authors (2004-2014)', combines contributions from Postcolonial Studies, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. It explores a selection of novels and autobiographical works written by diasporic authors in two different contexts: Moroccan authors established in Catalonia and Pakistani-heritage authors in Britain. The selection of the texts has been based on chronological and thematic criteria: they have all been published between 2004 and 2014 and the main plot is set in the household. This focus on intimate space allows me to discuss religion, social class and gender at a micro-level but also to go beyond the private space and discuss how these aspects intersect with widespread discourses at a broader national level.
The aim of this transnational comparison is to suggest that, in spite of the apparent differences between Britain and Catalonia/Spain, a common pattern can be found in both contexts. For this purpose, I look at the publishing market but also at the social, economic and historical conditions that enable the emergence of a diasporic literary body in each context. Following this lead, I approach the texts under study from a political perspective, reading them as a response that diasporic authors give to the demands made by the dominant discourses that articulate Spanishness/Catalanness and Britishness respectively. Such categories rely on assumptions concerning ethnicity, religion, social class and gender relations and I discuss how these pre-conceived ideas are contested, challenged and rearticulated by dint of characterisation. Thus, I look at specific characters in each of the corpus texts, as indicative of broader issues related to the themes under analysis.
Stereotypes are taken as the point of departure to analyse how these are re-signified, debunked and appropriated as a way of depriving them of their harmful potential, precisely by highlighting them as constructs. In Chapter Two, I discuss how the idea of the faith-blinded
Muslim is questioned by appealing to notions of secularism but also by using the veil metaphorically as a textual exercise that conceals and reveals itself to the reader. In Chapter Three, I draw on Bourdieu’s categorisation of types of capital to analyse how characterisation is used to contest a dominant narrative that associates these two diasporic communities with economic and cultural precariousness. In Chapter Four, I discuss how uncritical links between Islam and misogynist attitudes are subverted by means of characterisation, so that preconceived associations are critiqued and alternative representations of gender relations are proposed.
