Resistant assimilation and hometactics as decolonial practices : the stories of Leilah and Ibrahim in The Orange Trees of Baghdad

I approach life writing as one of the most prominent forms of microhistory narratives that questions the grand narratives of history produced internationally and locally. Focusing on a transnational Iraqi background woman writer, I argue that lived-experience narratives, despite their contradictions and the politics of publication, which has placed them into the category of "misery narratives," are still epistemically value-laden and need to be carefully and empathetically read. I draw on feminist phenomenology and use an intersectional methodology to study Leilah Nadir's The Orange Trees of Baghdad (2014), which mostly reflects on the post-2003 invasion of Iraq, from the perspective of a half Iraqi, half British woman who has never been to Iraq but perceives of Iraq as homeland. Focusing on multiple voices in this memoir, I show how three different generations of an Iraqi family practice homemaking and create a sense of belonging to "home" before, during, and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I study the intersections of homeland, identity, and politics, using Orange Trees of Baghdad as a good example of second-generation migrant life writing.