Cultural Diaspora

The Twenty-first century is an era of globalization with the result that there is an ever increasing connectedness internationally. They may be travelling as a tourist, studying abroad, working in distant country or merely fleeing inhospitable climate of oppression and political discord resulting in blatant violation of human rights as well as basic necessities for life. People and sometimes refugees from trouble stricken countries like Syria or Afghanistan are seen in crossings. Along with intercontinental mobility comes the intercultural understanding that is always seen to change their worldviews and cultural values once they venture out of their home country. According to Berry, the cultural views can change when they undergo an adaptation

Caryl Phillips was born in St Kitts, migrated with his family to Britain when he was four months old. He was brought up in Leeds, Yorkshire and studied English Literature at Oxford University. He now lives in the United States of America and teaches at Yale University. Thus its very clear that he represents a true Diaspora. Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John’s, Antigua and at the age of sixteen she left for the United States of America. She lives in Vermont and teaches at Harvard. Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and had relocated the Hosseini family to Paris and couldn’t return to Kabul because Soviet invasion. His family applied for political asylum in the United States. He lives in San Jose, California. Thus the various authors themselves were migrants with variations and their works through their characters reveal part of their accumulated transcultural experience. The major short coming of transculturalism is that social psychologists have studied it more from a bicultural perspective. Multicultural experiences are the norm of the modern age and this is where the writers of Diaspora step in and assert their valid arguments in a convincing manner. Cultural theorist Paul Gilroy in his book The Black Atlantic (1993) discusses the massive history and cultural politics of Black Atlantic culture with special emphasis on the European fascism and the creation of postcolonial nation states in Africa and in other parts of the world. The political culture had been to get away from the shackles of slavery so as to go through the process of social upward mobility wherein which the societies can have meaningful participation and