Clash of Colored Borders: Repositioning of Immigrants over Racial Borders in Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam

Abstract

Life across borders is the geo-political and socio-cultural phenomenon that greatly influences nationstate. The borders draw a discriminatory line between 'us' and 'them', outsiders and insiders that is maintained by individuals through constructing unseen borderlines. Life across European borders maintains discrimination on colour that gives superior versus inferior social positioning through economical and political disintegration. Literature portrays the life of these individuals who choose to cross borders due to socio-economic instability of their nation-state however this instability is preserved across borders through unseen borders of race and color. The present paper is based on the qualitative mode of research and employs the technique of close textual analysis of Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam that aims to analyze the alienation and marginalization due to the race of South Asian immigrants who settled across European borders. The main theorists are Pablo Vila, John Agnew, Jeff Shantz and Teresa Hayter whose concepts are further illustrated through the works of other scholars for deep understanding and insight. The study will be significant to interpret the geo-political and bio-political bordering of South Asian immigrants who are struggling to survive on European borderlines with adaptation of social and cultural moors. It aims to examine the socio-cultural adaptability of the immigrants which is not acceptable by the whites instead alienate them due to their 'otherness' as 'black aliens'. The paper will finally conclude that the racial discrimination of South Asian immigrants across European borders is based upon their socio-economic instability by engaging them in incessant exertion in order to re-territorialize themselves within unseen borders.