Mapping the Exploration of Identity and Diasporic Belonging: A Literary Study of the Discourse in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Whereabouts

Abstract

Diaspora is studied in the historical and ethical background of migration of human beings. It is well known for its dislocation, disorientation, uprooted culture, fractured identity, multilingual or multicultural aspects of learning in the history of human migration. It has been studied in the different fields of knowledge and theory, having significant causes and effects of new exploration. In literature, it is studied with the straddle culture of human beings. Most of the diasporas are found unexplainable in the matter of identity formation. The literary and social term ‘diaspora’ is derived from Greek word ‘diaspeiro’ which means ‘to scatter’ or ‘to spread about’. It comprises of the Greek preposition ‘dia’ and verb ‘speiro’. Dia means ‘through’ or ‘between’ and ‘speiro’ means ‘to sow’ or ‘to scatter’. In this way, the word ‘diaspora’ means the scattering of population or the spreading of population across the region they are originated. The conceptual study of diaspora goes back to the human history and was initially used by the ancient Greeks to describe their scattering population all over the world. For the ancient Greeks, it was signified for migration and colonization. In the present context, ‘diaspora’ is read with the taste of modernity in the conceptualization of human migration, having actual feeling or feeling of others in the foreign landscapes. The present paper aims at the diasporic identity as well as the whereabouts of the narrator in the exploration of Jhumpa Lahiri in her latest novel, Whereabouts published in the Italian language in (2018) and translated by herself in (2021). By examining the characters’ quest for a sense of place, negotiation of cultural hybridity, and their grappling with multifaceted identities, this research aims to elucidate the nuanced tapestry of diasporic experiences evident in Lahiri’s literary corpus.