Mobility and Globalization: Reconfiguring the politics of identity in Flights by Olga Tokarczuk and Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Abstract

This article carries out a comparative study of Flights by Olga Tokarczuk and Less by Andrew Sean Greer in terms of mobility affecting the identity of individuals in a global world. It also throws light upon the idea of motion and how it complicates the relationship between an individual and his identity under the influence of globalization. Both novels have been selected to undertake the present study based on common themes. The study discusses how the novel Flights indicates that real life takes place in motion. The study is qualitative. The interpretation has been used as a research methodology. The novels have been analyzed in the light of "Globalization and cultural identity." Handbook of identity theory and research by Jensen, Lene Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, and Jessica McKenzie. The study also discusses how the state of motion affects the emotional side of an individual.  The study critiques a comparative study of two widely discussed novels. Though, both novels seem entirely different and diverse in their approach to the idea of mobility. Both present the story employing different narrative techniques. However, traveling unifies the thematic structure of both novels. The characters are found traveling. Traveling affects them at the external level and it also influences their internal selves. It also demonstrates how modernity plays its role in a global world. “We ‘live’ our gender, our sexuality, our nationality, and so forth as publicly institutionalized, discursively organized belongings… This is what I mean by saying that modernity is the harbinger of identity.” (273)