From Reiterative Practices and the Naturalization of White Privilege: A Critical Analysis of Mohsin Hamid's The Last White Man (2022)

Abstract

The main concern of this study is reiterative practices in Mohsin Hamid's (2022) The Last White Man, which aim to create and normalize white privilege. The study aims to demonstrate that whiteness is not something that is in people, but rather something that is a creation of society, sustained by reiterative practices, as described by Judith Butler, through repeated acts of recognition, institutional norms and everyday social interactions. The study is qualitative and interpretive in nature and takes a close reading of the novel, to analyze the strategies of reiteration in the novel and how these reiterative strategies help maintain white privilege. The analysis examines the ways in which Hamid deconstructs the natural and stable construct of whiteness, showing how it must be constantly reinforced socially. This racialisation of these practices results in a disruption of such practices and thus reveals the fragility of white privilege and its performativeness. The study helps in the literary and cultural studies by providing the Butlerian interpretation of race, identity and social construct of whiteness in the contemporary fiction.