DISLOCATED VOICES: CULTURAL MEMORY AND THE POLITICS OF BELONGING IN CONTEMPORARY MIGRANT LITERATURE

Abstract

This paper critically examines how contemporary migrant literature narrates dislocation, cultural memory, and the politics of belonging. In a globalized 21st century shaped by mass migration, forced displacement, and transnational identities, migrant writers offer complex literary strategies to negotiate trauma, hybridity, and nostalgia. Drawing on postcolonial theory, memory studies, and transnational literary criticism, this study analyses selected migrant texts to show how narrative techniques articulate experiences of uprootedness while challenging dominant notions of nationhood and identity. It argues that migrant literature functions as a critical archive of collective memory, producing alternative spaces of belonging that subvert rigid borders and hierarchical cultural narratives.