On Diaspora and Culinary Nostalgia: Reterritorializing Identity in the Reconceptualized “Thirdspace” in Diana Abu-Jaber Crescent (2003)

Abstract

This thesis examines the ramifications and implications of diaspora on displaced individuals, focusing on issues of spatiality and identity as depicted in Diana Abu-Jaber’s Crescent (2003). Drawing on Robin Cohen’s conception of “diaspora”, as well as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s co-founded concepts of “deterritorialization and reterritorialization”, the current study unravels the challenges of the diasporic community upon their dislocation, disrupting their spatial perception and self-identification within an unfamiliar host society. Moreover, it analyzes how individuals in diaspora resist cultural erasure and the influence of hegemonic powers by using culinary elements, nostalgia, and memory to reconnect with their lost tradition. Additionally, this research explores how the author reconstructs a radical “Thirdspace” of resistance within the narrative to counter the cultural erasure and re-assert her characters’ cultural identities. The analysis draws on the concepts of nostalgia, memory, deterritorialization-reterritorialization, and Edward Soja’s theoretical conception of the “Thirdspace”. The study concludes that certain characters experience absolute deterritorialization from their cultural identity, while others reterritorialize it within the foreign American territories by strategically employing the culinary elements in a heteroglossic discourse that encompasses nostalgia and memory. This process facilitates the creation of a “Thirdspace” of resistance that enables diaspora individuals to reclaim their agency, preserve their culture, and ensure the continuity of their origin and legacy within the confines of the American territory.