The Struggle between Dominant and Indigenous Identity

Abstract

This study examines the struggle between dominant and indigenous identities in Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. Drawing on postcolonial perspectives associated with Stuart Hall, Frantz Fanon, and Homi K. Bhabha, and using M. J. Murphy's methods of character analysis, the study qualitatively analyzes how Mustafa Sa'eed and Ifemelu negotiate cultural identity through strategic essentialism, nativism, and the third space. The analysis considers physical appearance, authorial description, speech, actions, thoughts, and the reactions of other characters. The findings indicate that both protagonists initially adopt selected features of dominant cultures in response to social and cultural pressures, later reclaim elements of their indigenous identities, and ultimately occupy a hybrid and ambivalent third space. The study demonstrates that postcolonial identity is neither fixed nor reducible to a simple opposition between indigenous and dominant cultures; rather, it is continuously negotiated through cultural adaptation, resistance, and hybridity. By bringing together strategic essentialism, nativism, and third-space theory, the study contributes to understanding identity formation in postcolonial literary contexts.