Women, English Literature and Identity Construction in Southern Punjab, Pakistan

Department of English Language and Literature, Baha-ud-Din Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan.

The present study attempts to understand young Pakistani women's identities in relation to their aspirations for higher degrees in English literature. The research reported here is part of a larger ongoing study aimed at exploring linkages between young women's literacy practices in various languages and their concepts of self and identity. The feminist techniques of unstructured in-depth interviews backed up with a self-participatory approach and participant observation were used to capture the richness and fluidity of women's public and private identities. The analysis and findings suggest that despite resistance shown by women to Western culture and ideologies, they do take on new subjectivities and positionalities as they tend to imbibe the norms and values associated with English. The wider exposure to English at an institution of higher education opens up windows to the world, to Western ideologies and world-view, coupled with access to the Internet, cable channels, literary texts, books and magazines. Often in expressing personal aspirations that are contrary to their more traditional roles there is also a certain resistance to this cultural invasion; the women seem to project distinct hybrid identities that are dichotomous and conflictual.

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