Glocalism, disguised oppression and parochialism: a study of Karachi You’re Killing Me
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47264/idea.jhsms/3.1.24Keywords:
Euro-American anchors, globalization, international division of labour, division of labour, native informant, local under erasure, restricted agencyAbstract
Underscoring concerns related to gender studies, postcolonialism, and glocalism, this paper presents a discussion about how local is being presented in chick lit by a Pakistani female author Imtiaz (2016) in her Anglophonic novel Karachi You’re Killing Me! Applying Dirlik’s (1997) theorization about global and local in The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism, where he asserts how the local gives an illusion of empowering the local, but in reality, local is viewed and presented in a parochial manner and put in a reductive category. The focus on the local, therefore, is a new gimmick of colonizers and imperialists. With this theoretical perspective, in this paper, it is argued that the representation of the locals in the novel is eclipsed by the colonial narrative. By underscoring negative aspects of local the writer seems to be performing the role of a native informant and is a re-endorsing colonial narrative about the orient. It is also argued that this local female author has been empowered to write but the agency she is granted is loaded because it is, in fact, quite restricted.
References
Abdullah, M., & Awan, S. (2017). Islamic post feminism and Muslim chick-lit: coexistence of conflicting discourses. Pakistan Journal of Women's Studies: Alam-e-Niswan, 24(2), 93-105. http://www.pakistanwomenstudies.com/pjws/article/view/31
Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Theory, Culture and Society, 7(2-3), 295-310. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/026327690007002017
Bauman, Z. (2005). Globalization: the human consequences. Blackwell.
Belsey, C. (2013). Textual analysis as a research method. In G. Griffin (2nd Ed.), Research methods for english studies. Edinburgh University.
Beukeboom, C. J., Burgers, C., Szabó, Z. P., Cvejic, S., Lönnqvist, J. E. M., & Welbers, K. (2020). The negation bias in stereotype maintenance: a replication in five languages. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 39(2), 219-236. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0261927X19869759
Dirlik, A. (1997). The postcolonial aura: third world criticism in the age of global capitalism. Westview Press.
Du Bois, W. (2007). The souls of black folks. Oxford University.
Fanon, F. (2004). The wretched of the earth. Grove Press.
Ferriss, S. & Young, M. (2006). Chick lit: the new woman's fiction. Routledge Taylor and Francis. https://www.routledge.com/Chick-Lit-The-New-Womans-Fiction/Ferriss-Young/p/book/9780415975032
Fielding, H. (2012). Bridget Jone's diary. Picador.
Financial Surveys. (2015, September 2020). http:://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapters-19/10-Education.pdf
Friedman, T. L. (2005). The world is flat: a brief history of the twenty-first century. Macmillan. https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/dlpp_all/107/
Genz, S. A. (2009). Postfeminism cultural texts and theories. Edinburgh University.
Grix, J. (2004). The foundations of research. Palgrave Macmillan.
Imtiaz, S. (2016). Karachi, you're killing me! Random House.
Negra, D. (2009). What a girl wants? fantasizing the reclaimation of self in postfeminism. Routledge.
The Guardian. (2013, August 28). NYPD secretly labels Mosques as terror groups and spies on them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/nypd-surveillance-mosques-terror-spying
Pieterse, J. N. (1996). Globalisation and culture: three paradigms. Economic and political weekly, 1389-1393.
Robertson, R. (1994). Globalisation or glocalisation? Journal of International Communication, 1(1), 33-52. https://doi.org/10.1080/13216597.1994.9751780
Roy, A. (2015). Capitalism: A ghost story. Verso.
Rushdie, S. (1991). Imaginary homelands: essays and criticisms. Penguin Books.
Said, E. (1994). Culture and Imperialism. Vintage Books.
Said, E. (1978, 2003). Orientalism. Penguin Books.
Scholte, J. A. (2005). Globalization: A Critical Introduction, (2nd ed ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Shamsie, M. (2017). Hybrid tapestries: the development of Pakistani literature in English. Oxford University.
Suleri, S. (1992). Woman skin deep: Feminism and the postcolonial condition. Critical Inquiry, 18(4), 756-769. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/448655
Tambling, J. (Ed.). (2016). The palgrave handbook of literature and city. Palgrave Macmillan.
Virani, F. ( 2014, March 23). Cover story: Karachi, you’re killing me! by Saba Imtiaz. Dawn. https://www.dawn.com/news/1094839
Whelehen, I. ( 2005). The feminist bestseller: From sex and the single girl to sex and the city. Palgrave Macmillan.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Samar Zakki, Nighat Ahmad
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Please click here for details about the Licensing and Copyright policies of IDEA-PG.
