Cultural Construction of Political Identity in Tommy Orange’s There There and Bakhtiyar Ali’s Dwahamin Hanary Dunia

This study explores the construction of political identity from a cultural perspective in the novels There There by Tommy Orange and Dwahamin Hanary Dunia by Bakhtiyar Ali, through analyzing the relationship between displacement, memory, and resistance. In Orange’s novel, Native American identity is presented within a colonial context, revealing the contradictions between tradition and modernity. Ali’s novel, on the other hand, reflects Kurdish identity through the lens of exile, dictatorship, and wounded belonging. Both novels move away from fixed concepts of identity and present it as a changing process shaped within a sociopolitical framework. Using a comparative literary approach based on postcolonial and cultural theory, the study examines how political identity is built through cultural interaction and historical awareness. The Powwow celebration in There There symbolizes the struggle of urban Native Americans to reclaim their identity amid modernity and diaspora. Similarly, the pomegranate tree in Ali’s novel serves as a metaphor for a historically rooted Kurdish identity that continually adapts to exile. The symbols in both texts demonstrate that identity is not a fixed entity but the result of a continuous process of fragmentation and reconstruction. By comparing the two works, this study contributes to the understanding of the role of literature in shaping political identity, hybridity, and resistance, and it emphasizes the novel’s importance in reimagining belonging and confronting dominant discourses. The Oakland Powwow in There There honors and challenges Native American hybridity. Likewise, the pomegranate tree in Dwahamin Hanary Dunia represents Kurdish hybridity rooted in history but ever flexible to displacement and exile.