Amal’s Intercultural Encounter in Shaping Her Diasporic Identity in Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.201201.097How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Diasporic Identity, Identity Development, Intercultural Encounter

Abstract

In this modern era, going from one country to another could be done easily supported by the advancement in technology. People who come to a new country need to fit into a ‘new’ society in case they want to be acknowledged, or they could keep their culture and oppose conformity. This study aims to reveal Amal’s intercultural encounter in shaping her diasporic identity in Susan Abulhawa’s novel Mornings in Jenin. To avoid a broad analysis, the study is limited only to Amal, the main female character in the novel. Postcolonial approach and theory, culture and identity, and diasporic identity theories are used for data analysis. Particularly, Martin and Nakayama’s multi-stages of identity development theory is also used to reveal the development of Amal’s diasporic identity in her journey as a minority in the States. The study shows that Amal’s intercultural encounter has critical roles to shape her diasporic identity. As an Arab who lives in America, her cultures collide with American cultures. Amal has undergone a confusion state: if she did not conform, she would feel the Otherness in herself and could not socialize well with American society. Eventually, Amal decides to conform to American culture. She reduces her Arab identity, but not entirely while gaining a new identity as an American.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Aimatul A. Maghfiroh
AU  - Much. Khoiri
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/12/03
TI  - Amal’s Intercultural Encounter in Shaping Her Diasporic Identity in Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin
BT  - Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Arts and Humanities (IJCAH 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 553
EP  - 560
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201201.097
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201201.097
ID  - Maghfiroh2020
ER  -