ABSTRACT

Through a series of fragments, vignettes, and a montage, this essay explores the underlying crises of contemporary capitalism and the nation-state as presented in Sunjeev Sahota's 2015 novel The Year of the Runaways. The essay examines the novel's innovative Anglo-Punjabi diglossia as an index of social contradiction and political crisis in the wake of immigration and nationalist reaction in the U.K. It lays out as well the competing pressures that serve to catalyze the production of new diasporic subjectivities and the adoption of non-traditional social practices among Sahota's characters. Along the way, the essay delves into the significance of naming and its relationship to identity via the discourse of the name (nam) in Sikh scripture. The final fragments elaborate upon the opening of new possibilities of selfhood for Sahota's central characters. This opening is premised on, and yet reach beyond, abstract labor-power under capitalist regimes of accumulation and Indian caste and gender norms.

摘要

通过一系列片段，小插曲和蒙太奇，本文探讨了孙耶夫·萨霍塔（Sunjeev Sahota）2015年的小说《逃亡之年》中提出的当代资本主义和民族国家的潜在危机。本文考察了小说的创新性盎格鲁-旁遮普语地作为在英国移民和民族主义反应之后的社会矛盾和政治危机的指标。它还阐明了促使新的流散性主观意识和政治思想产生的竞争压力。索霍塔角色中采用非传统的社会习俗。在此过程中，本文通过锡克教经文中的名字（nam）论述了命名的重要性及其与身份的关系。最后的片段详细阐述了萨霍塔人的新的自私可能性 的中心人物。这种开放是建立在资本主义积累制度，印度种姓和性别规范下的抽象劳动力之上的，但现在却超出了这一范围。