CARTOGRAPHIES OF LOSS: REIMAGINING POSTCOLONIAL TRAUMA IN JAMIL AHMAD’S THE WANDERING FALCON

Abstract

Trauma and its influence on our daily responses have long been studied in relation to the psychoanalytic discourse provided by Lacan and Freud. This complex discourse largely defines trauma as a singular, catastrophic and sudden event (accident, war, loss) that disrupts the daily course of an individual’s life. However, this event-based western model of trauma fails to address the postcolonial experiences of trauma, where trauma is an on-going, structural and persistent reality. Postcolonial citizens, as a result of colonization for ages, have been subjected to structural inequalities, oppression, racism and systemic discrimination, and therefore, have not experienced trauma as a singular, historical event rather as a form of continuous and life-long struggles. Consequently, these experiences of trauma based on the cultural realities and lived experiences of postcolonial individuals are not addressed in the previous discourse and thereby remain 'unclaimed' within the traditional framework of trauma theory. This work aims to address this gap by re-imagining the concept of trauma within the postcolonial context by analyzing the lives of tribal people of Baluchistan, Pakistan. This paper examines Jamil Ahmad’s work The Wandering Falcon through the lens of Jennifer Yusin’s “Postcolonial Trauma” to reveal the complexities of people residing in tribal regions and the ways in which their lives are constantly affected by the horrible strands of colonialism, oppression, racism, and discrimination, that are not singular event of their past but an on-going, persistent and structural forms of trauma in their daily lives. By using textual analysis as a research method, the selected text depicts how colonial legacies results in an on-going trauma for tribal people, that alters the concept of trauma for them. The significance of this study lies in its contribution to the discourse on postcolonial communities by giving voice to the unclaimed struggles and losses suffered by tribal people. By centering their unclaimed traumatic experiences, this study brings visibility to tribal people, whose struggles and resilience remain largely invisible in mainstream culture and history.