The Geopolitics of Fragmented Memory: Representations of the Margins and Diaspora in the New Arabic Digital Novel

Abstract

This study examines the dialectical relationship between cultural geopolitics and fragmented memory in the new Arabic digital novel by investigating representations of the margins and diaspora within its narrative and technological spaces. It seeks to unpack the central problematic of how the Arabic digital novel reshapes concepts of memory, identity, and belonging amid contemporary digital transformations. To this end, the study adopts a critical analytical approach that combines theories of collective and individual memory, on the one hand, with mechanisms of digital and hypertextual construction, on the other. Methodologically, the study relies on a critical analytical approach complemented by a semiotic-narrative method, focusing on pioneering Arabic digital novels such as Chat, The Lover’s Shadows, and Frost by the Jordanian novelist Mohammad Sanajleh. It also engages with the broader theoretical context encompassing academic critical studies of Arabic digital literature. The study concludes that the new Arabic digital novel does not merely represent a technological transformation in narrative practices; rather, it constitutes an alternative space for reconstructing the fragmented memory of the marginalized and diasporic subject. The digital screen thus becomes a digital site of memory through which the meanings of identity and belonging are renegotiated within complex geopolitical contexts. The study further reveals that the hypertextual and interactive structure of digital texts enables readers to participate in the reconstruction of collective memory, thereby transforming the Arabic digital novel into a form of cultural resistance against imposed forgetting and historical erasure.