Revisiting Masculinity and Othering in Diasporic Fiction

Contemporary literary discourse has extensively deliberated upon the construction of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ that not only legitimizes the politics of othering but also gives rise to the crisis of masculinity in the context of diaspora. Against this background, this article aims to examine the aspects of masculinity in diasporic fiction with a special reference to Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen (1974), Joan Riley’s Waiting in the Twilight (1987), and Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia (1990). Deliberating upon the intersection of othering and masculinities, the present article intends to examine the experience of ‘masculinity crisis’ among men of colour in transnational settings. In this study, we explore what othering entails and how it threatens and disrupts men’s masculine self-concept, forcing them to negotiate respectable forms of male identity. A critical understanding and perspective on how the practice of othering causes a rupture in masculine identity may assist in understanding what men of colour are struggling with in a diasporic context and what types of intervention or mediation can mitigate or nullify the discursive practice of othering