Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

@article{203612,
        author = {Ms. Sameena Thomas and Dr. Linet Sebastian},
        title = {Liquid Belonging: Mobility, Precarity, and Self in Contemporary Indian Travel Writing},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {12},
        pages = {11146-11149},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=203612},
        abstract = {The paper applies Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity, in travel narratives to examine the fluidity and the uncertainty of the present age, arguing that modern travel narratives do not simply describe geographic journeys, but reflect and refract on the fluid, precarious and consumeristic condition of liquid modern life. To exemplify this, two of the Indian travel narratives are analysed in the chapter: Shivya Nath’s The Shooting Star and Pallavi Aiyar’s Orienting: An Indian in Japan. Both authors use travel/mobility not just as a physical/geographical act, but as a means of constructing an uncertain and fragmented identity. This constructed identity is responsible for their own biography, which precisely fulfils the kind of liquid self-identification Bauman describes. Through the close textual reading and discourse analysis of the texts, the paper explores how travel writing facilitates the existential dilemma of liquidity in a world where the self is constantly in a state of flux},
        keywords = {Liquid Modernity, Zygmunt Bauman, Mobility, Identity Construction, Fragmented Belonging, Social Theory, Travel Writing Scholarship},
        month = {May},
        }