Shifting Cities, Shifting Identities: Reading Urban Politics and Diasporic Citizenship in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West

This chapter explores how Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West (2017) reimagines the contours of South Asian diasporic citizenship within urban spaces shaped by neoliberal urbanism. It argues that such literary urban narratives illuminate the intricate interplay between shifting identities, cities, human agency, and socio-spatial inequalities. In an era marked by constant departure and resettlement, the widespread privatization of public space, the dominance of profit-oriented power structures, and the intensifying surveillance of marginalized groups make it essential to unravel the connection between urban politics and diasporic citizenship among South Asian diasporas and beyond. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory, this study demonstrates how neoliberal urbanism undermines spatial justice and prevents urban inhabitants from cultivating a sense of belonging. At the same time, it underscores the urgent need for migrants to actively engage in urban transformation and to construct self-empowered diasporic spaces. The findings reveal that Hamid’s cities, as literary representations of South Asian urban enclaves, operate as mediating forces between state power and everyday life. They move beyond being merely sites of political oppression or citizenship dilemmas, instead becoming dynamic realms of revolutionary change and transformation, where diasporas continually negotiate their shifting identities as they arrive in each new location.