Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North: Investigating Stereotypes and the Dehumanizing Effects of Colonialism

Abstract

Long before colonialism emerged as an imperial project, cultural stereotypes and myths have fed the Western discourse about the Orient. Even during the medieval ages and Renaissance period, the discourse about Muslims and Islam was deeply informed of the distorted images, fabricated views, and overgeneralizations rooted in racial and religious prejudices. These myths were popularized through European art and literature to construct a particular narrative later used to legitimize the imperial designs and economic control of the native people. The research views this dehumanization of people and the vicious cycle of psychological trauma as a direct result of colonial enterprises by imperial forces. Using anti-colonial theories and postcolonialism as a framework of the study and building on the works of anticolonial theorists like Fanon, Memmi, and Césaire, the research seeks to investigate how these dehumanized images form the core of imperial designs and how colonialism dehumanizes people, distorts perspectives, engenders alienation and perpetuates a cycle of psychological violence across cultures and regions.