Vietnam is characterized by ambivalences. Its history has been marked by colonialism andextremely destructive wars. Nevertheless, thanks to its renovation program (Doi Moi), thecountry has succeeded to rise from a status of “developing nation” to the one of a competitiveeconomic actor in the global market. Surprisingly Vietnam has entered the capitalist economywhile maintaining its authoritarian communist regime. Thus, while the population hasexperienced an increase in its purchasing power, and is being accustomed to capitalist goodsand services, many of its rights and privileges are still restricted by Government measures.This inevitably has an effect on social relations. Among others, on the status of women whichis characterized by similar ambivalences. On the one side, the communist regime hasencouraged women to work and occupy more space in society. Equality between men andwomen is acknowledged through its body of laws, the creation of specific institutions (such asthe Women’s Union), and the signature of international conventions protecting women (likeCEDAW). On the other side, Vietnamese society is still marked by strong conservatism andpatriarchy inherited from Confucianism, which severely constrains women’s rights andfreedoms. A phenomenon particularly enforced through the traditional institution of theFamily where women are still expected to be the servants of their husbands and other familymembers, including in-laws.In this context, I have observed a particular social phenomenon: the growing number ofSingle Moms (the expression is the translation of the Vietnamese label). Be it as the result ofa divorce, or of an unwanted pregnancy, or again as a deliberate choice to get pregnant andraise a child alone, more and more women are choosing this path of independence from thetraditional family. Therefore, this dissertation aimed to address the different power relationsto which Vietnamese Single Moms are resisting, and to unveil the means they are employingto challenge them in that process. Two field trips in the province of Hanoi allowed me todevelop an interdisciplinary and intersectional study that was grounded in the subjects’standpoint and experience of subordination and marginalization. In turn, this gave way to thepossibility of locating and understanding their empowerment, and the social spaces they havegained thanks to resistance. In that frame, by crossing methods of inquiry, and categories ofdifferences, I highlighted how Single Moms are resisting various power relations in the publicsphere, the private sphere, as well as in translocal sites (through internet), and how all levelsare interconnected. This analysis being situated in the particular context I’ve described.The dissertation concluded on epistemological considerations for the study of gender andresistance today. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This essay examines Harriet Jacobs’s autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl from the perspective of resistance theory. The essay uses the analytical framework created by Anna Johansson and Stellan Vinthagen in Conceptualizing 'Everyday Resistance': A Transdisciplinary Approach (2020) to concretize and understand different resistance methods and how black women resisted while navigating in society as slaves and as mothers. Resistance theory and methodology is a newer research area in literature studies, and this study attempts to add to that research field to broaden the understanding of Harriet Jacobs’s autobiography from a resistance perspective point of view. Johansson and Vinthagen’s analytical framework uses four different aspects to capture conceptual and situational combinations of everyday resistance and relationships existing between agents and powerholders. This study finds that motherhood and communal resistance motivate and influence Jacobs's will to continue fighting for liberty and explains how Jacobs’s everyday resistance actions create a feeling of meaning and agency in her life.

Les fictions franco-vietnamiennes, qui ont relevé le défi de dépasser le carcan folklorique, offrent un point de vue original sur les concepts de femmes, d’histoire et d’exil dans des contextes de dominations politique et sociale différents. Néanmoins, ces fictions mettent en place des stratégies de résistance très proches. Parmi toutes les questions soulevées par les représentations qu’élaborent ces œuvres, celle de la résistance a été retenue car elle est particulièrement riche et révélatrice de la complexité de leur identité littéraire. Comment s’écrit la résistance dans les œuvres franco-vietnamiennes ? À quoi résistent-elles ? Quels sont les enjeux de cette résistance ? L’étude se focalise sur les fictions de quatre écrivaines franco-vietnamiennes contemporaines, Linda Lê, Kim Lefèvre, Ly Thu Ho et Anna Moï. Ces écrivaines offrent des pistes de réponses à ces questions, en mettant en évidence trois dominations qui se croisent et s’articulent entre elles : la résistance à la domination masculine, à l’histoire surplombante et à la glorification d’une identité nationale figée. Le cadre d’analyse choisi est celui des resistance studies.Cette méthode permet d’engager une description systématique des figures de résistance présentes dans les récits de fiction. Le champ d’investigation pose tout d’abord le problème des représentations de la place des Vietnamiennes, tiraillées entre la société patriarcale teintée de confucianisme et la société française moderne. Elle implique également l’examen des modalités déployées dans les œuvres du corpus pour déjouer les pièges d’une écriture de l’histoire du Vietnam qui accorderait peu de place aux voix subalternes : aux Vietnamiens et en particulier aux femmes. Finalement, à travers l’analyse de l’exil comme forme masquée d’insoumission, nous interrogerons la façon dont le sujet femme-postcoloniale s’approprie les apports exogènes sans renoncer à son éthique et son identité particulières. / Having successfully taken up the challenge of going beyond the limits of folklore, French-Vietnamese fiction offers an original point of view on the ideas of women, history and exile. These elements are staged in different contexts of social and political domination, but they nevertheless set up very similar strategies of resistance. This is why, among all the issues raised by the representations framed by these works, that of resistance was chosen, since it is so rich and revealing of the complexity of their literary identity. How is resistance described in French-Vietnamese works? What is being resisted against? What is at stake in this resistance?This study is focused on the works of four French-Vietnamese contemporary writers: Linda Lê, Kim Lefèvre, Ly Thu Ho and Anna Moï. These female writers provide answers to the questions above by highlighting three correlated and intertwined dominations: resistance to male domination, to overarching history, and to the glorification of a frozen national identity. The framework of the analysis is that of resistance studies.This approach enables a systematic description of the resistance figures encountered in these fictional works. The field of investigation first reveals the issue of the representation of Vietnamese women, torn between a Confucean and patriarchal society and that of modern France. It also implies the study of the means developed in these works to avoid the traps of a writing of Vietnamese history that allows little space to subaltern voices of the Vietnamese, and of women in particular. Finally, through the analysis of exile as a hidden form of insubordination, we will question the way in which French-Vietnamese narrative gives initiative to the postcolonial woman subject and enables her to appropriate contributions from outside without denying her ethics
and her identity.

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