Space-Body Dynamics in the Novels of Kamila Shamsie and Uzma Aslam Khan

This thesis offers a comparative analysis of geographical themes in the works of two contemporary Pakistani women writers, Kamila Shamsie and Uzma Aslam Khan. In view of the importance of Pakistan’s geostrategic location, contemporary Pakistani writing in English has garnered critical attention in the context of its political perspectives. However, this thesis argues that given the inextricable intertwinement of geography with history and politics since the spatial turn, the geographical within the geopolitical deserves equal attention in the context of Pakistan. In the thesis, I apply a methodological framework derived from phenomenology and feminist geography in order to conduct a study of the representation of Pakistani terrestrial, marine and aerial geographies in Shamsie’s and Khan’s novels. More specifically, I evaluate Shamsie’s and Khan’s return to Pakistani ground reality, sea topography and aerial wildernesses via tropes associated with cartography and palaeontology: tropes of feminist transnational mobility that gauge the political, social and cultural implications of the spatial turn. The thesis concludes that a return to geography and geology in Shamsie’s and Khan’s fiction offers the possibility of a reorientation of Pakistani identity and a partial resolution to the contested notions of Pakistani belonging and citizenship in keeping with the inherent diversity and pluralistic dimensions of its geographical terrain. It also offers Pakistan possibilities of a more peaceful convergence and engagement with its international partners. This alternative rerouting/rerooting of identity foregrounds the potential benefits of a more intimate engagement with the geological and geographical aspects of Pakistani space.