"The crossing river" changing cultural identities causing displacements – a study on the work caryl phillips

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate, through the novel Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips, situations of (not) belonging and fragmentation of the subject caused by the diaspora in the period of slavery. This is an effort to examine the diasporic identity formation of the central characters of the novel and its social and cultural consequences in the ways of the Atlantic. From the perspective of the diaspora and postcolonialism, the analysis is divided into four main authors: Stuart Hall, in which one can understand the meaning of the African Diaspora, Avtar Brah, which focuses on the diasporic movement through the prism of the idea of home and belonging, Paul Gilroy, highlighting black identity formed in-between, in transit through the paths of the Atlantic, and Frantz Fanon, who analyzes the fragmentation of the African subject due to the forced diaspora. The result are the voices of African culture that the diasporic movement, still echo all over the Atlantic.