Navigating the Third Space: Hybridity and Cultural Identity in Selma Dabbagh’s Novel Out of It (2011)

Abstract

By focusing on Homi Bhabha’s “third space” notion in The Location of Culture (1994), this paper attempts to understand how the third space framework allows for the investigation into the intricacies of identity formation in postcolonial and diasporic contexts with regard to Selma Dabbagh’s novel Out of It (2011). Leveraging Bhabha’s concept of the third space as a transformative zone of cultural impingement, cultural negotiation including issues of identity, take on particular importance with regard to the hybrid identity. By analyzing the protagonists Rashid and Iman Mujahed, as representations of hybridity in Dabbagh’s novel, this paper examines how they move back and forth between Palestinian heritage and Western culture by a close reading of the text. The findings show that Rashid’s diasporic experiences and Iman’s activism strongly characterize the third space as both an empowered space, where the characters reshape their identities, and as an alienated space due to cultural misunderstanding and reduction. But the novel ultimately depicts identity as something that is fluid, entirely molded and shaped by constant interplay of the cultural influences, familial influences and socio political influences. Finally, this paper argues that the third space framework represents a highly useful conceptualization for the study of identity as an ever-changing ideology within globalized, diasporic stories of identity where characters reimagine their prescribed identity in the face of spatial and cultural boundaries.