“Enormous Cracks, Towering Mountains”: The Displacement of Migration as Intimate Violence in Sri Lanka-Australia Migration Narratives

Abstract

This paper argues that the experience of migration, however successful in the end, entails some degree of violence for the undertaking subject, as it necessarily shakes her or his sense of a personal identity. This idea is tested against Yasmine Gooneratne's novel A Change of Skies (1991), while reference is also made to other Sri Lankan diasporic novels. Frequently migration is a double-edged survival strategy, one which is not without a heavy toll. Grounded on notions elaborated by Diaspora theorists, the ultimate aim is to throw light on the personal aspects of migration, as a means to complement current approaches that focus on its communal dimensions.