IDENTITY INDETERMINACY AS A LIFE STRATEGY IN THE MOVIE NOMADLAND AND NOVELS BY BEKIM SEJRANOVIC

Abstract

The paper analyses identity indeterminacy as a contemporary life strategy in the novels of From Nowhere to Nowhere (Nigdje, niotkuda; 2008) and Dnevnik jednog nomada (Diary of A Nomad; 2017) by Bekim Sejranovic, as well as in the movie entitled Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, 2020). By referring to postmodern identity theories, the paper deals with issues of refugees, wandering, vagrancy, nomadism, exile, people without official documents (so-called sans-papiers), stateless people and alike, with emphasis on the works of prominent authors in the field, such as Zygmunt Bauman, Stewart Hall, Manuel Castells, Ivan Colovic, Michael Hart, and Antonio Negri. The afore[1]mentioned issues are approached in two ways, with the concept of identity rejection being confronted with the one denoting giving up a homeland. The former implies a voluntary act and discarding identity determinacy and being eradicated from a (ethnic) community by virtue of free will, whereas the latter carries in itself an idea of coerced abandonment of one’s identity and identification with one’s previous living space, mostly due to war hardships, to impossibility of making living on one’s own, and to disturbed living conditions. Both of these concepts are highlighted in the movie in question and the novels by Sejranovic respectively, and they point to identity indeterminacy and absence of need for being related to a certain territory, which represents the dominant paradigm of life in the contemporary postmodern world.