LIVING IN A TRANSITIONAL ZONE:A CRITICAL DISOURSE ANALYSIS OF DIASPORIC CULTURAL IDENTITY IN ABDULRAZAK GURNAH’S GRAVEL HEART

Abstract

This research conducts a Critical Discourse Analysis of diasporic cultural identity in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Gravel Heart, conceptualizing diaspora as life in a transitional zone shaped by displacement, silence, and negotiated belonging. Using Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, the research analyzes textual features, discursive practices, and socio-historical contexts to understand how language creates diasporic subjectivity in postcolonial Zanzibar and in metropolitan Britain. The novel unveils the intersection of individual trauma with colonial histories, migration policies, and family politics to form discontinuous identities that do not lend themselves to assimilation and rooted-ness. Discourses of exile, memory, secrecy and authority are depicted to control belonging and at the same time allow instances of resistance and self-fashioning. The paper claims that Gurnah disrupts the essentialist conceptions of culture and identity by presenting the concept of diaspora as a dynamic and ongoing process instead of a state. Placing Gravel Heart in the context of postcolonial and diasporic discussions, the article shows how literary discourse reveals the invisible processes of power inherent in migration, home, and cultural difference discourses, in the world today.