Home Fire: A Rhizomic Narration against Bio-power

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran

Abstract

This article focuses on the concept of rhizome and its relation with ‘bio-power’ in Kamila Shamsi’s Home Fire (2017) through the perspective of cultural studies. Deploying Faucauldian concept of bio-power and focusing on the techniques of adaptation, the article tries to discuss how the post-colonial West has imposed the biopolitical discourse through ‘norms’ and concepts like social purity, ‘collective identity,’ and ‘ethnic ontology.’ To this end, notions of ‘difference,’ ‘deterritorialization,’ and ‘reterritorialization’ have been explored. It is argued that with domination of ‘exceptional situation,’especially after September 11th, the silence imposed upon the minority groups, and their banishment into ‘bare life,’ terror and religious fundamentalism seem inevitable outcomes. Shamsi’s work is an attempt to challenge western bio-politics at a time when heterogeneity is the rule of the day; rhizome and polyphony the inalienable features of life, and ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being’ the very essence of man. At this time, in Shamsi’s view, the source of one’s identity should be located in ‘difference,’ and hierarchical discourses should succumb to horizontal equality.

Keywords

References

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Research in Contemporary World Literature
Volume 27, Issue 2
February 2023
Pages 765-790

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