Conflict and Anguish in an Alien Land: How Feminine Writers Cope with Migration

Abstract

Social scientists have since long been aware that migration is not just a transfer of place; rather it leads to a veritable metamorphosis of the life of migrants and generates several multi-layered influences on the migrants’ psyche. In its implication, this has repercussions on both sides: genesis of chauvinistic feelings among the hosts and, more as a reaction to it, a kind of nostalgic self-identity crisis among the immigrants, the moment they seek to locate themselves within the host social corpora. Such experiences lead the social scientists working in the field to pay attention to the migrants’ struggle to get their identity established in the world of the host community. The present paper uses a Conflict Approach to the phenomenon of migration. As a vital aspect of the Conflict Approach, the paper endeavours to underline quotidian agonies and struggles depicted in the writings of the female migrants across continents. Our main concerns are: How do these women authors provide deep insights into the migrants’ expectations from the host land and the bereavements in the nations left behind? How do they provide glimpses of the conflicts gripping the migrants who find themselves divided between two worlds? How does a trans-national identity transcend its cultural differences with the receiving society? The paper also seeks to find out how migrants struggle to adapt themselves to an alien culture and how they endeavor to resolve the potential, latent and manifest, instances of conflict. Our investigation is based on a content analysis of selected pieces of female migrant literature.