Internalized Arab diasporic identity: revisiting the Duboisian double-consciousness

Abstract

This article explores how the notion of double-consciousness peculiar to the African dispersion is not distant from the condition of most Arabs in diaspora. Arguably, it is similarly creolized as a syncretic product of continuous historical, cultural and linguistic processes, and is correspondingly an immediate consequence of the advent of the colonized world. Although connections with the Arab ties, whether emotional or cultural, vary largely, the politicized aspect of double-consciousness remains salient. This article examines internalized personality formation and the process of forming ethno-cultural identity within the Arab diasporic community through the Duboisian narrative of double-consciousness.