Exit Strategies: Paradoxical Mobility and the Redefinition of Belonging in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West

Abstract

Diaspora is a space of in-betweenness, where issues of identity, belonging and cultural pluralism come to the fore. As a liminal context, it often reinforces rigid distinctions and clashes between self and other. Against this backdrop, Mohsen Hamid’s Exit West offers a new vision of diaspora as a transformative experience, turning liminality into a generative state of transition that allows for unconventional forms of belonging. Drawing on Victor Turner’s concepts of “liminality” and “communitas”, this paper examines the motif of “magical doors” to explore Hamid’s depiction of diaspora as a space where cultural differences fade, making way for the emergence of spontaneous hybrid communities rooted in pluralism and interconnectedness. Rather than reinforcing cultural separateness, the novel envisions a world where collective identity is reshaped outside strict cultural frameworks, advancing alternative paradigms of belonging based on mutual influence, collective survival, and individual reinvention.