Women, Migration, and Identity in Contemporary Postmodern Fiction: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Migration has emerged as one of the defining themes of contemporary postmodern fiction, particularly in its exploration of women's identity, displacement, and belonging. Although extensive scholarship has examined migration narratives, comparatively little attention has been paid to the representation of women's identity across the selected novels of Elif Shafak and Mohsin Hamid. This study addresses this gap through a comparative analysis of Shafak's The Bastard of Istanbul (2006) and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (2019), alongside Hamid's Exit West (2017) and The Last White Man (2022), investigating how migration, cultural hybridity, and identity negotiation shape women's identities and challenge conventional notions of home, nation, and belonging. Adopting a qualitative comparative research design, the study employs close textual analysis grounded in postmodern feminist theory, Homi Bhabha's concept of hybridity and the Third Space, and Stuart Hall's theory of cultural identity. The findings reveal that both authors portray migration as a multidimensional process of identity reconstruction rather than mere geographical relocation: Shafak foregrounds women's resilience, collective memory, and intercultural coexistence through fragmented narratives, while Hamid emphasizes psychological displacement, fluid identities, and the transformative possibilities of borderless mobility. The study concludes that these texts redefine women's identities as dynamic, hybrid, and continuously negotiated within globalized societies, contributing to literary criticism, migration studies, and feminist discourse by challenging essentialist conceptions of identity.