POLITICS OF FEMINIST INTERSECTIONALITY: A FEMINIST POST- STRUCTURAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PAKISTANI DIASPORA POETRY

Abstract

This study focuses on the fluid subject position of women in a diasporic society, to investigate the powerful discourse of resistance in poetry through the Feminist Post-structural Discourse Analysis (FPDA) while triangulating it with Intersectionality and Mills model of Feminist Stylistic Analysis to arrive at a clear idea about diasporic Feminist identity (Baxter, 2003; Lewis, 2013: Al Faham et al, 2019 ; Mills, 1995). It shows an insight into the Feminist marginalized identity of four Pakistani Poets who are generating their identity in their poems with impacts from race, Ethnicity and living in a country which renders them displaced from their identity of belonging. The linguistic analysis looks at the language through the use of stylistic, while FPDA and Intersectionality aid in the meaning of this experience and highlight if the poets use any discourse of resistance towards the experience and give voice to the female experience of being marginalized in the poetic genre. This study is a qualitative-descriptive study of eight poems, focusing particularly on the politics of fluid positions transitioning between powerless and powerful discourses. The sample for this study consists of two poets i.e. Manzoor-Khan, and Dharker, and their poems published in the last decade. The results reflect how female diaspora poets have denounced the patriarchal subjugation of women by highlighting the biased attitude of a hegemonic society. The harsh tactics of the Western community are explored in competing yet interlinked discourses to show that women, being members of a marginalized group suffer more psychological stress while living in a minority community due to religion, race, gender, and national disputes. Another finding is that the triangulation of the theoretical approaches is helpful in highlighting the powerless and powerful subject positions of women.