Introduction

Transnational Identities 307
light the transnational elements of who they are” (Levitt and Glick Schiller 190).
Transnational identities are therefore not “linear or sequential” but can alter over
time in their intensity and there are degrees of connection regarding the countries
involved (Levitt and Glick Schiller 190). This certainly offers a much more detailed
perspective with regard to the identities of those involved than ‘hybridity’
could by highlighting that becoming transnational is not an event but an intricate
process.
So far there have been few critical voices concerning transnational lives. That
such networks of complex belongings and allegiances always work smoothly can
hardly be expected, though. Satzewich and Wong voice concern that maybe states
may not always be positive and accommodating towards transnational activities
and wonder if “in an era of shifting global alliances when yesterday’s international
ally can quickly turn into today’s ‘rogue state’ (and vice versa)” the pursuit of
transnational connections may be rather risky (298). A significantly larger group of
theorists believe that transnational lifestyles will increase, affect more and more
people regardless of their migrant status and thus change societies all over the
globe so much that “transnational lifestyles may become not the exception but the
rule” (Levitt 4; see also Beck, “Living” 275; Hannerz 230; Hedetoft and Hjort xvi;
Wong 170). In such a scenario all nation-states, cultures and lives would eventually
become hybrid, in the sense of being mixtures of different influences (Beck, “Living”
280; Chan and Ma 15).
5. Transnational Identities in Ondaatje’s Fiction
I will start my interpretation of Ondaatje’s fiction with a quote that refers back to
chapter 2. In an essay on The English Patient Aitor Ibarrola-Armendariz comments
on the state of North American literature:
[L]ately the very heart of North American literature has been taken over by
a race of postnational authors characterized by their rootlessness and sense
of transcultural identity. […] Rather than seeing their existence divided between
their old home and indigenous heritage and a new home in a postimperial
order, they prefer to (un)define themselves as belonging to two –
or more – half-homes simultaneously. Naturally, their literary production is
deeply affected by this change in self-perception, so that what we generally
encounter in it are groups of uprooted souls, their lives dominated by an
all-prevailing sense of dislocation. (37-38)
As above, migrant writing is again seen as dislocated and uprooted and its characters
– as well as the author – as having no real home and celebrating their rootlessness.
Especially when it comes to Ondaatje’s fiction, such a judgement seems
unconvincing to me and appears to merely repeat the usual concerns associated
with migrant writing without taking a closer look. I will not the deny the existence