Dialogic Failure of Displaced Lifeworld: An Analysis of Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Abstract

This article investigates the encroachment of the economic and administrative systems in the immigrant lifeworld in Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Habermas’s concept of lifeworld colonization has been customized by taking into account panoptic surveillance as an accomplice of financial and political pressures which cause strains in interpersonal communication. The accumulative effect of systematic pressure and surveillance on the verbal and nonverbal interpersonal interaction of the characters under surveillance is studied through a dialogic lens to answer the following questions: How is the dialogic nature of personal relations in the novel Exit West jeopardized by the continuous process of migration? How does the status of being migrant make the lifeworld vulnerable to a systemic watch of the host communities? How does displacement intensify interpersonal conflicts? The article employs dialogic textual reading to study the play of system-backed ideologies and the alleged role of the given dominant narrative at the level of interpersonal communication.

Keywords: Immigrants, Lifeworld, Double-Voicing, Surveillance.

Highlights:

• Lifeworld Colonization
• Role of Panoptic Surveillance
• Erosion of Interpersonal Communication
• Displacement Intensifying Conflict
• Locating Power Imbalance through Double-Voiced Reading