From Postcolonialism to Post-9/11: Examining the Socio-psychological Corollaries on Youth in Home Boy by H.M. Naqvi

This paper by establishing the epochal connection between postcolonialism and post-9/11, examines the social and psychological impact of the two eras on youth characters as reflected in H. M. Naqvi’s Home Boy. This article determines that after the fall of the Twin Towers, the new developments in the shape of post-9/11 and the ‘war on terror’ and America’s hardline policies of neo-imperialism mark a new epoch analogous to postcolonialism. Due to identity crises, othering, and resistance young Muslim immigrants in the USA encounter socio-psychological issues in their new homeland. The USA’s post-9/11 approaches - foregrounding religious and ethnic differences - led to the dichotomous resurgence of identity crises in America which strongly resemble the colonial era’s binary oppositions of Self/Other, Occident/Orient, Superior/Subaltern, and White/Brown. Qualitative methods of data collection have been utilized. For the conceptual framework, the research examines the social and psychological dimensions of postcolonial literary theory considering the concepts of Homi. K. Bhabha, and other eminent theorists. In the field of social psychology, the study utilizes Erik Erikson's concepts outlined in the book Identity: Youth and Crisis and the parameters developed by Robert T. Carter concerning PTSIM: a hypothetical psychological theory. This paper’s specific focus on the representation of the socio-psychological impact of post-9/11 on young characters and their consequent reactions adds more to the dynamics of contemporary literature.