In Search of Nationhood Across Borders

Abstract

Territorial divisions on the basis of religious communities may tend to ignore other more important issues such as language, culture and belonging. Working with Bhabha’s concept of the location of culture which, according to him, is ‘more around temporality than about historicity … more complex than “community” … more connotative than country….’, the present paper attempts to explore the dimensions of nationhood as they have emerged in Bangladesh, through the work of two Bangladeshi writers, both located abroad : Monica Ali and Tahmina Anam. Monica Ali’s chosen location for the narrative is England while Anam places her work in Bangladesh at a moment when it transformed itself from West Pakistan to its new identity and hence looks more closely at the before and after of the happening. Ali in contrast carries her narrative to the ‘clash of civilisations’ in the aftermath of 9/11. In both cases, the narratives are located in family histories as they weave themselves into national histories and move towards new identities. There is a constant dialogue between homeland and the idea of a nation, revolving around issues of race, religion, culture and gender as each calls forth different loyalties and notions of freedom. What happens to families as international happenings, civil wars and terror attacks divide them? How do homelands transform themselves and, at times, push the individual towards a feeling of being alienated and where are memories of the homeland located—are some of the issues that are discussed alongside the narrative shifts that take place through further dislocations and subnarratives.