Displacement, Migration, and Cultural Hybridity in Amitav Ghosh’s Novels
Sr No:
Page No:
10-12
Language:
English
Authors:
Amarjit Kumar Singh*, Dr. Shawan Roy
Received:
2025-11-19
Accepted:
2026-01-06
Published Date:
2026-01-18
Abstract:
Amitav Ghosh occupies a central position in contemporary Indian English literature for his sustained engagement with
histories of displacement, migration, and cultural hybridity shaped by colonialism, globalization, and transnational movements. His
novels consistently foreground mobile subjects—migrants, refugees, traders, sailors, indentured laborers, and exiles—whose lives
unfold across borders of nation, language, and culture. This paper examines how displacement and migration function not merely as
thematic concerns but as structuring principles in Ghosh’s fictional universe, giving rise to complex forms of cultural hybridity.
Focusing on major novels such as The Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood
of Fire, the study explores how Ghosh reimagines history from the margins, challenges nationalist narratives, and articulates hybrid
identities shaped by cross-cultural encounters. Drawing on postcolonial theory, diaspora studies, and cultural criticism, the paper
argues that Ghosh presents hybridity not as cultural dilution but as a dynamic process of negotiation, survival, and creativity. His
fiction reveals displacement as a shared condition of the modern world and migration as a force that reshapes memory, identity, and
belonging beyond fixed territorial boundaries.
Keywords:
Displacement, Migration, Cultural Hybridity, Postcolonialism, Diaspora, Transnational Identity.