“La banalité de l’exclusion. Autopsie in vivo de quelques romans d’auteures caribéennes et subsahariennes (Condé, Mukasonga, Danticat et Miano)” examines the complex logics examines the complex logics of social exclusion and connects writings from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, two sites often treated separately in the domain of Francophone studies. Precisely, this dissertation addresses how exclusion unfolds in these postcolonial societies—with migration, exile, and globalization echoed in the literary texts that I read. My argument is that our understanding of social exclusion and violence in these societies still draws solely from homogenizing development theories that originate outside of them. Re-theorizing social exclusion, I show in my work how these texts portray acts of social exclusion and violence through such insidious categories as geography, origins and lineage, as well as personal history, and local traditions and practices, that contribute to the making of misfits and outcasts, and yet remain overlooked in most attempts to address social exclusion in these specific locations. In navigating these relationships between social situations and literary form, I engage with psychology, social theory, and also physiology as I resort to autophagy (from the Greek “auto” meaning self and “phagy” meaning eating), a physiological process in the body that destroys cells to analogically demonstrate that by nurturing destructive behaviors these societies jeopardize chances to reach national cohesion and therefore contribute to their own destruction. The various chapters analyze texts by women writers: French Guadeloupian Maryse Condé, Haitian-American Edwidge Danticat, Rwandan French Scholastique Mukasonga, and Cameroonian French Léonora Miano. Self-critical agents of their communities, their act of bearing witness to these disruptions from a decentered position becomes highly problematic specifically for Danticat and Miano, as their legitimacy is challenged by resisting readers from their countries of origin who see their hyphenated selves as outsiders and traitors. But, hardly discouraged, these authors demonstrate the need for a renewed social response in writing that is provocative, with a rhetoric that resists the obsolete framing of fault and responsibility as always the Other’s.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciada en Lengua y Literatura Hispánica mención Literatura / En este trabajo analizo dos novelas de la escritora haitiana Edwidge Danticat, Palabra, Ojos, Memoria y Cosecha de Huesos, en torno a los conflictos que se generan en la construcción identitaria en los sujetos migrantes presentes en ellas. La investigación gira en torno a tres conceptos fundamentales: identidad y migración, por un lado, para abordar el conflicto principal que, como se dijo anteriormente, tiene que ver con las problemáticas que surgen en la identidad de aquellos sujetos que han tenido la experiencia de la migración. Mientras que por otro lado, se encuentra el concepto de memoria, que propongo como un factor que sustenta en estos individuos la posibilidad de su reconfiguración identitaria. A partir de estas nociones se desarrolla el análisis de estas novelas, el que se complementa con una reflexión comparativa respecto de ambos textos, que pone especial énfasis sobre los modos en que el desplazamiento físico, que supone la migración a otro país, es acompañado por un desplazamiento en la propia concepción de ser de los sujetos implicados en este tipo de proceso.

This essay takes a look at two short stories from the novel Krik? Krak! written by the Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat. The short stories “Caroline’s Wedding” and “New York Day Women” are about mother-daughter relationships where the mothers and daughters are either first or second generations immigrants from Haiti. This essay focuses on these relationships and how they are related to immigration. To address these issues of relationships and immigration, several critics and their opinions on the subject are presented as well as an examination of key events in the short stories.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-94).

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Cette étude explore les stratégies de survie qu'Edwidge Danticat, Jamaica Kincaid et Toni Morrison développent dans leurs romans. Il s'agi de n'étudier que trois romans de chacune d'entre elles. Elles sont toutes trois de trois générations différentes. Une vingtaine d'années sépare chacune d'entres elles, et pour tant les thématiques qu'elles élaborent se font écho, sans pour cela que leurs stratégies d'écriture soient comparables. La première partie s'intéresse aux bases de la transmission de la problématique des noirs des Amériques: la mère, le père et la structure sociale, c'est-À-Dire la relation aux autres. La deuxième partie est centrée sur l'individu et ce qui en est dit dans les textes, mais aussi sur la marge de silence qu'ils expriment. La troisième partie étudie les stratégies qui s'élaborent depuis la marge puisque ces romans-Là, de manière intrinsèque, racontent la marge. La quatrième partie explore les stratégies de résilience qui se concentrent essentiellement sur le vivant qui, cependant, n'accède à la compréhension de ses propres stratégies de survie que trop tardivement. / Our purpose is to explore the survival strategies that Edwidge Danticat, Jamaica Kincaid ans Toni Morrison develop in their novels. Only three novels of each author were the objects of our scrutiny. The three novelists are Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean from three different generations. A bear 20 years stands between each of them, yet the themes they tackle echo each others even if their writing strategies seem different. Our first part deals with the bases of black lore transmission: the impact of the mother figure, the place of the father and the social structure which transmits cultural features through relationships between each individual. Our second part is centered on the experiences from the margin: what it is to live" outside" and the silences it implies. Our third part explains the strategies that are elaborated from that margin. Finally, yhe fourth part concentrates on resilience strategies even if the understanding of the phenomenon happens belatedly.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Photocopy. Supervisor: Helena Woodard. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (P. 156-160).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Helena Woodard. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The Farming of Bones is Edwidge Danticat’s novel about Amabelle Desir, a Haitian migrant in the Dominican Republic during the 1937 Haitian massacre. The Massacre is a historical fact presented through a fictional text that acts as a testimonial. The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate how Danticat, in her role as an activist, urges readers to become social justice seekers and enter the discourse of race. Through an examination of Carl Jung’s and Vodou’s shadow theories in regards to the construction of a racial identity by Haitians and Dominicans, I uncover the racial narratives in place from Haiti’s colonization and independence to our current time. Danticat, through the novel, moves the reigning racial paradigm out of the shadow and thus allows readers to reflect on its effects. Thus it is not only the characters in the novel that must confront the shadow, but the readers themselves.