Fragmented Identities: Diasporic Consciousness in Ling Ma’s Severance

Abstract

This study examines how Ma constructs hybridity and diasporic consciousness as central narrative dynamics that interrogate the complexities of cultural belonging, displacement, and self-definition in a globalized world. Through the figure of Candace Chen—a Chinese American woman navigating both the collapse of a capitalist system and the lingering weight of immigrant memory—Severance dramatizes the tensions between assimilation and cultural preservation. Drawing on postcolonial theories of hybridity, particularly Homi K. Bhabha’s conceptualization of the “in-between” or liminal space, the study highlights how the novel reimagines this zone as simultaneously a site of alienation and a locus of creative resistance. The narrative’s oscillation between monotonous routine and apocalyptic disruption mirrors the psychological dissonance of the diasporic subject, whose fractured identity parallels the broader dissolution of postmodern subjectivity under late capitalism. Ultimately, this study argues that Severance transforms the diasporic condition into an allegory of contemporary global precarity, illustrating how hybrid identities function not only as symptoms of displacement but also as strategies for navigating an increasingly homogenized cultural landscape.