Fractured Worlds and Sealed Borders: Neoliberalism, Migration, and the Politics of Exclusion in the Vignettes of Exit West

Abstract

This research examines Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, with a particular focus on its vignettes as literary critiques of neoliberal capitalism and its effects on global migration. The novel shows how neoliberal policies, marked by economic insecurity, systemic exclusion, and conflict, push people from the Global South to migrate, where they continue to face marginalisation and hostility in the Global North. The vignettes, presented as short self-contained narratives, highlight the ways in which neoliberal states control migration through surveillance, militarised borders, and exclusionary rhetoric. The “black doors” operate as a metaphor for the restricted and secretive routes that migrants are forced to take under rigid visa systems. Using a qualitative, postcolonial counter-neoliberal approach, this study applies thematic analysis to examine global inequality, border politics, and resistance. The findings show that the vignettes give a human face to the displaced while questioning dominant neoliberal narratives on migration and displacement.