Finding the third space in digital diaspora in the narration of Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons (2019): A postcolonial corpus-assisted analysis

The aim of this study is to show how Leila Aboulela incorporates digital diaspora in her narration of Bird Summons (2019). Largely focusing on the main character, Salma, the study also explores how Aboulela depicts Arabs, who in the West try to cope with their new life through technology and social media. Aboulela shows how Salma reaches to what Homi Bhabha calls ‘The Third Space’ with the assistance of digital devices and social media. The novel is analysed through the lens of postcolonialism with the use of corpus linguistics. The importance of digital environments is well-established in migrant groups in diaspora is highlighted in the novel. There is shortage of studies that tackle digital environments and diaspora in general. The contribution of the study lies in the fact that Bird Summons (2019) as a novel has been tackled by a few scholars. Added to that, corpus linguistics is not widely used in literary studies. Thus, the study fills in an important gap in the literature due to these important contributions. The study concludes with the fact that Aboulela includes digital dispersions in her storytelling of Bird Summons (2019). Furthermore, Aboulela portrays her primary protagonists, who are individuals of Arab descent residing in the western hemisphere, as capable of adapting to their unfamiliar surroundings through the utilization of technology and social networking platforms, with particular emphasis placed on the character Salma.