Urban Dystopia and Spatial Alienation: A Lefebvrian Reading of the Production of Space in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Author : Harsha C and Dr. Kiran SN
Abstract :
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) has been extensively examined through the frameworks of identity, post-9/11 geopolitics, globalisation, and postcolonial, cultural, and political studies. Little attention has been paid to the role of urban space in shaping the protagonist Changez's ideological transformation. Space is not merely the setting in the novel but an active force in constructing, transforming, and contesting Changez's identity and political consciousness. The present study argues that the novel represents Lahore and New York not merely as geographical space but as socially produced spaces that actively construct subjectivity, belonging, and political consciousness. According to Henri Lefebvre space is not merely a geographical setting but a social product shaped by social relations, power, and ideology. The study investigates how Mohsin Hamid represents New York and Lahore as socially produced urban spaces. The study employs Lefebvre's spatial triad spatial practice (perceived space), representations of space (conceived space), and representational spaces (lived space) to investigate the production and experience of urban space in the novel. The corporate landscape of New York constructs a capitalist vision of success while simultaneously producing exclusion and alienation in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In contrast, Lahore emerges as a lived and contested urban space where Changez renegotiates belonging, memory, and resistance, transforming the city into a site of resistance against dominant global narratives. The study also examines how the September 11 attacks transformed the meanings attached to urban spaces and Changez's changing relationship with both New York and Lahore. Changez reorients his political consciousness and political ideology. In the process, the study contributes to urban literary studies by extending Lefebvre's spatial theory to Mohsin Hamid's fiction and offers a spatial reading of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) that foregrounds the centrality of urban space.
Keywords :
Henri Lefebvre, Mohsin Hamid, urban space, Lahore, New York, spatial production, globalization.
