Postcolonial Identity and Resistance: A Philosophical Reading of Mahmoud Darwish’s Identity Card Through Hegel, Sartre, and Fanon

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 MA. in English Literature, Department of English Literature, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran,

2 Full Professor of English Literature, Department of English Literature, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

10.22080/jlab.2026.31688.1017

Abstract

This research provides an interdisciplinary analysis of Mahmoud Darwish’s “Identity Card” through the frameworks of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s master–slave dialectic, Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenology of “the look,” and Frantz Fanon’s postcolonial theory. It examines how Darwish represents identity formation, objectification, and resistance through the encounter between the speaker and the officer. Employing close textual analysis combined with theoretical interpretation, the study investigates how the poem engages with philosophical questions of recognition, alienation, and subjectivity. Although Darwish’s poetry has been widely examined from political and literary perspectives, the relationship between phenomenological concepts and the representation of identity in “Identity Card” remains comparatively underexplored. This study argues that the poem transforms an act of identification and classification into a broader reflection on the struggle for reciprocal acknowledgment and the assertion of selfhood within structures of colonial domination. By bringing together Hegelian, Sartrean, and Fanonian perspectives, the study demonstrates that “Identity Card” transforms a bureaucratic demand for identification into an existential struggle over recognition, selfhood, and colonial power. Approaching the poem as a literary and philosophical text rather than advancing a political position, the study contributes to Darwish scholarship by situating “Identity Card” within broader contemporary discussions of identity, recognition, and postcolonial subjectivity.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Literature Across Borders
Volume 1, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
Winter/Spring
July 2026
Pages 153-172

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