The Dynamics of Feminine Identity in the Context of Cultural Displacement: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri

Abstract

The complexities of feminine identity in diasporic literature have long fascinated postcolonial and feminist scholars. Jhumpa Lahiri, a prominent voice in contemporary South Asian diaspora writing, portrays immigrant women who navigate a liminal space between tradition and modernity, home and exile, belonging and alienation. This paper explores the dynamics of feminine identity in Lahiri’s fiction, emphasizing how displacement reshapes women’s selfhood, relationships, and sense of cultural belonging. Drawing upon feminist postcolonial theory particularly the concepts of hybridity (Homi Bhabha), cultural identity (Stuart Hall), and transnational feminism (Chandra Talpade Mohanty) the study examines the struggles and adaptations of Lahiri’s female characters in The Namesake (2003), Interpreter of Maladies (1999), and Unaccustomed Earth (2008). The paper argues that Lahiri reconfigures diasporic womanhood as a dynamic process of negotiation, where identity is neither fixed nor lost but continually redefined through memory, language, and experience. By analyzing the intersections of gender, culture, and displacement, this research positions Lahiri’s women not as passive victims of migration but as active agents reconstructing the meaning of home and selfhood within transnational contexts.