DefinePK

Abstract

This paper examines the poem of Moniza Alvi, Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan (1993), in terms of the theory of hybridity by Homi Bhabha, and his ideas of ambivalence and the third space. Placing Alvi in the context of Commonwealth women diasporic poetry, the article demonstrates that her cultural identity negotiation is a symptom of the UK-South Asian Commonwealth relations tensions after 1945. The study finds out how Alvi’s poetic persona depicts the fragmented identity of the postcolonial subject, enchanted between the cultural expectations of her Pakistani heritage and the Western environment and inhabits how these items are Commonwealth signifiers, connecting personal identity to migration and colonial trade histories. Instead of making identity appear as merely lost, Alvi introduces hybridity as a re-definition that is created within Commonwealth diasporic networks. This study combines the Bhabha theory with a Commonwealth-specific emphasis to demonstrate how the work of Alvi can shed light on the cultural negotiation of diasporic women and also help to inform the wider discussion of hybridity, citizenship, and postcolonial belonging in Commonwealth literature.