Trauma, Borders, and Third Spaces: Mestiza Consciousness and Liminal Memory in Selected Pakistani Anglophone Short Stories

Abstract

This study aims to examine how the concepts of mestiza consciousness and liminality, particularly those arising from memory and trauma, shape hybrid subjectivities in Pakistani Anglophone short fiction. Focusing on two short stories, Qaisra Shahraz’s “The Visiting Grandmother” (1998) and Sabyn Javeri-Jillani’s “Neither Day Nor Night” (2007), the research explores the experiences of characters as they negotiate cultural, religious, and national boundaries. The data consists of close textual readings of the two short stories, selected for their thematic focus on hybridity, displacement, and intergenerational trauma. Using a qualitative, interpretive methodology grounded in postcolonial theory and Gloria Anzaldúa’s (1987) notion of mestiza consciousness, the study analyzes how liminal spaces become sites for reconstructing fragmented identities. The findings reveal that these narratives foreground borderland experiences marked by unhomeliness, cultural conflict, and fluid subjectivities. The protagonists’ struggles to reconcile divided loyalties and multiple identities reflect a broader critique of binary thinking and essentialist frameworks. The selected stories suggest that trauma and memory, when situated in liminal spaces, serve as powerful tools for resisting fixed notions of identity and enable the formation of hybrid selves. This research contributes to the discourse on postcolonial identity by highlighting how Pakistani women writers use narrative to map the emotional and psychological terrain of border crossing and cultural negotiation.