Renegotiations of the southeast asian female identity through identity fluidity and transculture/ality in selected novels by Minfong Ho
Previous studies on Southeast Asian females have focused mostly on issues pertaining to their identity viewed by the West as voiceless, submissive and hypersexual, which have also affected their personal growth and developments. This study problematises these mainstream notions by the West and...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/99372/1/FBMK%202021%208%20IR.pdf |
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| Summary: | Previous studies on Southeast Asian females have focused mostly on issues pertaining
to their identity viewed by the West as voiceless, submissive and hypersexual, which
have also affected their personal growth and developments. This study problematises
these mainstream notions by the West and investigates whether they are reflected in
works of fiction through the portrayals of female protagonists living in Southeast Asia,
namely in Thailand and Cambodia, in four novels by the American-Chinese writer,
Minfong Ho. In the scope of this study, these female protagonists are portrayed as
subjected to the expectations of how they should behave in societies and conform to the
patriarchal values ingrained in these cultures. Thus, the three concepts of identity fluidity
and the decentring of subject by Stuart Hall, and the concept of transculture/ality by
Arianna Dagnino are applied as conceptual frameworks to investigate the Southeast
Asian female identity in Sing to the Dawn, (1975), Rice without Rain (1986), The Clay
Marble (1991), and The Stone Goddess (2003) as the data for this study. The research
objectives are to explore how the three concepts of identity fluidity, namely the
enlightenment subject, the sociological subject, the postmodern subject, and the
decentring of the subject through transculture/ality are reflected in the novels through
the female protagonists’ practice of traditional cultures in the Thai and Cambodian
societies; to examine how the identities of the female protagonists, as young women
living in traditional patriarchal Thai and Cambodian societies constrained within power
imbalance and gender relations, are shaped through the decentring process by
transculture/ality; and to discover the female protagonists’ various responses to the
practice of traditional cultures in Thai and Cambodian societies by applying the tenets
of transculture/ality. The methodology of the study is based on a textual analysis of the
female protagonists’ behaviours, thoughts, and speeches, in relation to identity fluidity
and transculture/ality by focusing on how they undergo the three stages of identity
fluidity and the decentring process of transculture/ality with regards to their Southeast
Asian female identities as Thai and Cambodian women. The findings reveal that the
protagonists’ identities gradually evolve from being conformed to the practice of their Thai and Cambodian cultures to young women who exhibit voice, agency and no
hypersexual characteristics after being decentred through the intermingling of cultures
and demonstrating the three stages of identity fluidity. More specifically, Dawan in Sing
to the Dawn fulfils her wish to study in Bangkok when she firmly stands by her decision
to study there, Jinda in Rice without Rain transforms into a reformation activist when
she journeys to Bangkok to fight for her father’s release from prison, Dara in The Clay
Marble becomes the head of the family when she resolutely convinces her brother to
leave the Cambodian camp and start anew, and Nakri in The Stone Goddess breaks her
silence as she openly mourns after fleeing from the Khmer Rouge regime. Findings from
this study suggest that identity fluidity and transculture/ality can further be studied in
light of the third space concept and liminality. |
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