Here, there, somewhere: exile and identity in Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent

In Modernity at Large Arjun Appadurai explained how in our global world the juxtaposition of mass migrations with the rapid flow of mass-mediated images, scripts, and sensations has created a new order of instability in the production of modern subjectivities. Among the different forms of dislocation and discontinuity that characterize our global world, exile occupies a particular place, being that irremediably secular and unbearably historical phenomenon in which an unhealable rift is forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home. This paper analyses the different forms of displacement that characterize contemporary American society and that have compelled it to a redefinition of cultural borders and national identity, through the analysis of Crescent a novel by Diana Abu-Jaber who presents the issues of exile, home/land, identity and allegiance from an Arab American perspective with the intent of counteracting media portrayals of Arab people and presenting them in terms of diversity and humanity.