Panoptic spaces and the framings of South Asian diaspora in Jhumpa Lahiri's selected short stories

This article carries out a (con-) textual analysis of cultural crossings, with a particular focus on the notions of assimilation and syncretism, in certain of Jhumpa Lahiri's diasporic writings. By situating two of her short stories "This Blessed House" and "The Third and Final Continent" within the social-political context of the post-1960s America-when the country witnessed the re-emergence of Orientalism and the rise of a conflicting social phenomenon called neoliberalism-we pursue two important questions: How might the subjectivity of diasporas, under the pretext of convergences with mainstream rubrics, become a part of the apparatus of the hegemonic power? And, how can the rise of neoliberalism justify the ruptures between diverse cultural and political entities, and subsequently, be linked to the emergence of minority culture? To this end, Foucault's notion of panoptic spaces is used to examine the politics of cultural convergences and religious synthesis, and to analyze the relationship between the formulated identities and the dominant praxes within the fabric of both narratives. We conclude that the stories celebrate convergent measures of the minority culture, reinforce pre-established stereotypes and resonate with an existing public policy interest in regulating diasporic individuals from afar.