Volume VI Special Issue III March 2026

Name of Author : Ms. Padmashri B, Dr. Muthu Deepa M

Title of the paper : Bare Life in the Desert: Marginalization and Migrant Unfreedom in Benyamins Goat Days

Abstract: Life in the society is built and formed, communities are tangled in beliefs, and traditions are woven together with societal expectations. Societal expectations form the framework of dream for everyone here, creating a permanent governing paradigm in modernity that creates a state of exception, which is narrated in Benyamins writings. Benyamins Goat Days is a socio political literary novel narrating the Indian perspective of Gulf migrant labour. The novel exposes the hidden structures of exploitation, unfreedom and dehumanisation underpinning transnational labour from Kerala to Middle East. Benyamin offers a powerful literary representation of contemporary global capitalism. Analysing the select novel in the light of Giorgio Agambens concept of bare life, exposes a reduced condition of existence endured by the protagonist of the novel stripped of social, political and legal recognition, creating a state of exception. The paper attempts to argue that, Goat Days functions as a critic of modern sovereign power that sustains life only to eventually exploit it, foregrounding migrant suffering that always rendered invisible amidst dominant economic narratives.

Keywords : Bare Life, Dehumanisation, Homo Sacer, Migration, Unfreedom, Marginalization.

DOI :

Page Number : 180-184