Ce travail de recherche s’intéresse à l’œuvre poétique et en prose de Nicole Cage-Florentiny, écrivaine martiniquaise qui reçut en 1996, à Cuba, le prestigieux Prix Casa de las Américas. Archipélique et protéiforme, l’œuvre de Nicole Cage-Florentiny (romans, nouvelles, poésie, traductions) écrite en français, en créole et en espagnol, exprime les douloureuses relations ambivalentes qu’entretient tout Antillais avec la Caraïbe et le monde, questionnant ainsi la société antillaise en mal d’ancrage et en quête d’identité stabilisée face aux folies mortifères.L’œuvre de Nicole Cage-Florentiny est notamment nourrie par sa formation en espagnol et son militantisme idéologique qui la poussent à établir des liens très forts avec la Caraïbe hispanique, lesquels lui apportent d’ailleurs reconnaissance internationale et possibilité d’être publiée. Nicole Cage-Florentiny défend notamment une féminité afro-descendante en actes et en paroles, contre toutes les violences et les silences imposés, contre toutes les filiations hachées et ces familles déstructurées omniprésentes dans l’œuvre cagienne. S’affirmant comme héritière de Césaire et nourrie de l’Antillanité glissantienne, Nicole Cage-Florentiny cherche à relier les hommes et les femmes antillais et avec leur terre de nouvel ancrage depuis l’arrachement de l’Afrique et entre eux, tout autant qu’avec le reste de la Caraïbe en une approche post-coloniale du refus de toutes les marginalisations. Et c’est par l’Hispanité que Nicole Cage-Florentiny s’efforce de proposer une voie de reliance et de résilience effective.Autrement dit, l’Hispanité -dans sa dimension linguistique, épistémologique et littéraire (littérature péninsulaire avec notamment le modèle picaresque et littérature hispano-américaine avec l’importance de la dimension réelle-merveilleuse) s’avère être dans l’œuvre cagienne un enjeu (et un détour) esthétique indéniable en tant qu’élément-clé d’une reterritorialisation possible des Antillais. Il s’agit donc de souligner combien les positionnements de Glissant, depuis son fameux Discours antillais, affleurent à maintes reprises dans l’œuvre cagienne qui souhaite relier les pans d’h/Histoires oublié(e)s pour rétablir la dignité des mémoires « subalternes » et construire une poétique de l’Antillanité en interrelation(s), notamment à partir de la Caraïbe hispanique.La voix/voie de reterritorialisation caribéenne que propose l’œuvre cagienne s’inscrit dès lors dans le prolongement théorique et conceptuel d’un désir de réappropriation du lieu caribéen, exprimé déjà chez Glissant depuis le Discours antillais jusqu’à notamment sa Poétique de la Relation. Assurément, pour que les Antillais puissent affirmer leur Caribéanité, il conviendrait comme le souligne Nicole Cage-Florentiny, tant dans sa prose que dans sa poésie, de reconquérir mémoire et relation au lieu insulaire (terre et mer). Cette réhabilitation est alors sous-tendue par une quête de « sororité », soit un projet de « carrefours » en acte, constamment réécrits, comme pour mieux relier les éléments de la triade Antillanité, Hispanité et Caribéanité, et ce à partir d’une valorisation féminine dont le traitement est assurément l’une des originalités de l’œuvre cagienne. / This study aims at analyzing the creative works by Nicole Cage-Florentiny as the expression of the dolorous and ambivalent relationship between the Antilles, the Caribbeans and the World. We explore how this female writer from Martinique anchors her writing in the complexities and multiformities of the Antillean identities. This quest leads her to break the pact of silence and defend Black African femininity in its confrontation with both a patriarchal environment and the violence directed towards women and the family structures.While claiming Aimé Cesaire’s legacy and connection to Africa, Nicole Cage-Florentiny dwells on Edouard Glissant’s Antillean-ness as a means to connect men and women from Antilles with their new land, and reveal their common connection to the Spanish, French and Creole languages. In other words, through these languages, and particularly through the diverse connection to the African continent, Spain and the picaresque models of the peninsular literature, and through magic realism of the Creole language, Nicole Cage-Florentiny offers the Caribbeans the tools of re-territorialization.In short, this study underlines how Edouard Glissant’s “Poetic of Relation” informs Nicole Cage-Florentiny’s writing and her desire to connect diverse aspects of the “forgotten history” of the Caribbeans, her way to reconquer memories between land and sea, and rebuild a poetic of Antillean-ness defined as an interrelation between languages, races and identities, an interrelation between Antillean-ness, Hispanity and Caribbeanness.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Have South African women's lives become happier since the transition to democracy? If they are, could this be linked to gender equality? This is the central question of this study. This study explored a group of women’s subjective experiences of gender equality, by which I mean equality on the basis of gender; and happiness, which refers to women’s life satisfaction and their affective state. It further explores whether gender equality and happiness are linked. The study assumed that everything being equal, endeavours to liberate women from patriarchy and towards gender equality enhance women’s happiness. 1994 ushered in a democratic South Africa and numerous legislative and policy changes were introduced that affect women. Considerable gains have been made at the constitutional and political levels for women’s equality and gender justice. This is reflected in the rankings of South Africa on many different indices. Yet, we see numerous challenges facing women including poverty and gender-based violence. This study examined whether the presence of a range of policies as well as affirmative and protective measures for women have impacted on how they experience their lives. In particular, do they feel that they are happy and do they see happiness as linked to gender equality efforts? Given the research question, this study was grounded within a feminist framework. A mixed methods approach utilising both qualitative and quantitative methods was employed.

Enabled by a Minor Field Study scholarship from SIDA, this thesis examines indigenous involvement in ecotourism in the Ecuadorian Amazons. Indigenous people are the most marginalized social group world-wide, and coincidingly often live in resource rich pristine land. The oil-rich lands of the Amazons is called a resource frontier and is now increasingly important for the tourism sector, which comes to entail conflict of interests between the State and indigenous communities living in this area. Both the global call for sustainable development and national policies of “Buen Vivir” promotes ecotourism as an ecologically, socio-economically, and culturally sustainable activity. Scholarly opinion suggest that ecotourism generates potential tools of empowerment for the involved indigenous communities. With this backdrop and with the theoretical framework of the postcolonial debate, main opportunities and challenges are examined with the correlation of tourism ventures and socio-political implications in the local reality of indigenous organizations in Tena, Napo. Complex impediments are uncovered and analysed within the social field of indigenous ecotourism. The conviction of the study holds the call for attentive cross-cultural communication in order to continue the seemingly inevitable path of globalization in a more sustainable and non-discriminatory manner.

The United Nations category Least Developed country (LDC) was created in 1971 to ameliorate conditions in countries the UN identified as the poorest of the poor. Its administration and operation within UN development discourse has not been explored previously in academic analysis. This thesis explores this rich archive of development discourse. It seeks to situate the LDC category as a vehicle that both produces and is a product of development discourse, and uses gender analysis as a critical tool to identify the ways in which the LDC category discourse operates. The thesis draws on Foucauldian theory to develop and use the concept ‘technologies of knowledge’, which places the dynamics of LDC discourse into relief. Three technologies of knowledge are identified: LDC policy, classification through criteria, and data. The ways each of these technologies of knowledge operates are explored through detailed readings of over thirty years of UN policy documents that form the thesis’s primary source material. A central question within this thesis is: If the majority of the world’s poor are women, where are the women in the policy about the countries that are the poorest of the poor? In focusing the analysis on the representation of women in LDCs, I place women at the centre of the analytic stage, as opposed to the marginal position I have found they occupy within LDC discourse. Through this analysis of the reductionist representations of LDC women, I explore the gendered dynamics of development discourse. Exploring the operation of these three technologies of knowledge reveals some of the discursive boundaries of UN LDC category discourse, particularly through its inability to incorporate gender analysis. The discussion of these three technologies of knowledge – policy, classification through criteria, and data – is framed by discussions of development and gender. The discussion on development positions this analysis within post-development critiques of development policy, practice and theory. The discussion on gender positions this analysis within the trajectory of postmodern and postcolonial influenced feminist engagements with development as a theory and praxis, particularly with debates about the representation of women in the third world. This case study of the operation of development discourse usefully highlights gendered dynamics of discursive ways of knowing.

<p>This is a study of popular cultural representations of international adoption and adopted Koreans in Western countries. The study is carried out from a postcolonial perspective and uses a cultural studies reading of four feature films and four popular songs as primary sources. The aim is to examine how nationalism is articulated in various ways in light of the colonial experiences in modern Korean history and recent postcolonial developments within contemporary Korean society. The principal question addressed is: What are the implications for a nation depicting itself as one extended family and which has sent away so many of its own children, and what are the reactions from a culture emphasising homogeneity when encountering and dealing with the adopted Koreans? After an introductory chapter, Chapter 2 gives the history of international adoption from Korea, and Chapter 3 is an account of the development of the adoption issue in the political discussion. Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 analyse the cinematic and lyrical representations of adopted Koreans in four feature films and popular songs respectively. Chapter 4 considers the gendering of the colonised nation and the maternalisation of roots, drawing on theories of nationalism as a gendered discourse. Chapter 5 examines the issue of hybridity and the relationship between Koreanness and Whiteness, which are related to the notions of third space, mimicry and passing. Linked to studies of national division, reunification and family separation, Chapter 6 looks at the adopted Koreans as symbols of a fractured and fragmented nation. Chapter 7 focuses on the emergence of a global Korean community, with regards to theories of globalisation, diasporas and transnationalism. In the concluding chapter, the study argues that the Korean adoption issue can be conceptualised as an attempt at overcoming a difficult past and imagining a common future for all ethnic Koreans at a transnational level.</p> / Avhandlingen är även utgiven på Jimoondang Publishing Company (Seoul, 2006) och ingår där i Korean Studies Series No.32, isbn 8988095952. The thesis is also published at Jimoondang Publishing Company (Seoul, 2006) in Korean Studies Series No. 32, isbn 8988095952.

<p>Uppsatsens syfte är att visa hur Jean Rhys i sin roman <em>Sargassohavet</em> ifrågasätter de narrativa strategier och diskurser som avgör vilka romanpersoner och perspektiv som får komma till uttryck. Rhys gör detta bland annat genom att placera en icke-västerländsk kvinna, som dessutom påstås vara galen, i protagonistens position. På så vis legitimeras romanpersonens perspektiv och detta är ett sätt att låta den Andras röst få komma till uttryck, från det fria subjektets position.</p><p>Rhys lyfter också fram att det alltid finns fler än en sida av en berättelse. Den mångstämmighet som kännetecknar romanen visar att en berättelse kan framföras från flera olika perspektiv; genom att utrymme ges åt flera röster försvåras en reducerande läsart av romanpersonerna. Romanens polyfoni är också ett sätt att belysa de olika positionerna i de konflikter som strukturerar romanen, exempelvis konflikten mellan det västerländska och det icke-västerländska, mellan kvinnor och män och mellan rationalitet och fantasi.</p> / <p>The aim of this thesis is to show how Jean Rhys in her novel <em>Wide Sargasso Sea</em> questions the narrative strategies and the discourses that decide which characters are allowed to speak. Rhys does this by placing a non-western woman, who is also allegedly insane, in the position of the protagonist. By doing so, this perspective is legitimized and it is a strategy that lets the voice of the Other be expressed.</p><p>Rhys also emphasizes the existence of multiple versions of a story. The polyphony that characterizes the novel shows that a story can be told from different points of view. By letting several voices be heard, a reductive reading of the characters is prevented. The polyphony in the novel is also a way of bringing out the different positions in the conflicts that structure the novel, for example the conflict between the western and the non-western, between women and men and between rationality and fantasy.</p>

A travers une étude interculturelle détaillée et comparée de la production théâtrale minoritaire canadienne et américaine, ma thèse cherche à mettre en lumière les les apports thématiques et esthétiques du théâtre multi-ethnicque nord-américain contemporain à la tradition anglo-américaine du 20ème siècle. Les communautés asiatiques, africaines et aborigènes sont retenues comme poste d'observation privilégié de l'expression esthétique de la condition multiculturelle postcoloniale dans le théâtre nord-américain de la période allant de 1972 à nos jours. Sur base d'un corpus de pièces de théâtre, ma recherche m'a permis de redéfinir les grandes articulations des notions d'hybridité, d'identité et de communauté/nation postcoloniale. Through a detailed cross-cultural approach of the English Canadian and American minority theatrical production, my thesis aims to identify the thematic and aesthetic contributions of multi-ethnic North American drama to the Anglo-American tradition of the 20th century. My study examines North American drama from the vantage points of African, Asian, and Native communities from 1972 until today. Relying on a number of case studies, my research opened up new avenues for rethinking the notions of hybridity and identity in relation to the postcolonial community/nation.

This is a study of popular cultural representations of international adoption and adopted Koreans in Western countries. The study is carried out from a postcolonial perspective and uses a cultural studies reading of four feature films and four popular songs as primary sources. The aim is to examine how nationalism is articulated in various ways in light of the colonial experiences in modern Korean history and recent postcolonial developments within contemporary Korean society. The principal question addressed is: What are the implications for a nation depicting itself as one extended family and which has sent away so many of its own children, and what are the reactions from a culture emphasising homogeneity when encountering and dealing with the adopted Koreans? After an introductory chapter, Chapter 2 gives the history of international adoption from Korea, and Chapter 3 is an account of the development of the adoption issue in the political discussion. Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 analyse the cinematic and lyrical representations of adopted Koreans in four feature films and popular songs respectively. Chapter 4 considers the gendering of the colonised nation and the maternalisation of roots, drawing on theories of nationalism as a gendered discourse. Chapter 5 examines the issue of hybridity and the relationship between Koreanness and Whiteness, which are related to the notions of third space, mimicry and passing. Linked to studies of national division, reunification and family separation, Chapter 6 looks at the adopted Koreans as symbols of a fractured and fragmented nation. Chapter 7 focuses on the emergence of a global Korean community, with regards to theories of globalisation, diasporas and transnationalism. In the concluding chapter, the study argues that the Korean adoption issue can be conceptualised as an attempt at overcoming a difficult past and imagining a common future for all ethnic Koreans at a transnational level. / Avhandlingen är även utgiven på Jimoondang Publishing Company (Seoul, 2006) och ingår där i Korean Studies Series No.32, isbn 8988095952. The thesis is also published at Jimoondang Publishing Company (Seoul, 2006) in Korean Studies Series No. 32, isbn 8988095952.

Ce travail décrit et analyse comparativement trois phénomènes religieux ethnographiés ces dernières années à Madagascar que l'expédient sémantique "créativité rituelle populaire" caractérise assez bien, et que l'on peut respectivement étiqueter ainsi : cérémonie d'anti-sorcellerie (1975-1983, Nord-Est) ; procession funéraire (oct. 2001-jan. 2002, extrême Sud) ; culte de possession (à partir de la fin des années 1980, ville de Tuléar). La comparaison de ces phénomènes entre eux met d'abord en évidence une certaine homologie entre les deux premiers par rapport au troisième : ils s'en distinguent par leur mobilité, leur coïncidence avec une conjoncture nationale forte, ainsi que par leurs rapports vifs et contrastés avec des représentants de l'État. L'analyse met ensuite en évidence une analogie entre les deux premiers cas et la politique nationale qui leur est synchronique. Cette étude des relations pragmatiques s'exerçant dans les cadres spécifiques de ces rituels dégagent trois modèles de structuration du pouvoir agissant comme des matrices d'inter-subjectivité, appelés "territoire", "trajectoire", et "réseau". Sans postuler un rapport de détermination "par le haut", il s'agit enfin de rendre compte de l'activation sociologique de ces modèles, posée en termes de construction de légitimité. En définitif, c'est à la construction d'une identité collective par le bas et en acte, par rituel, que ces phénomènes amènent à réfléchir et théoriser. Il est remarquable de constater que ces dispositifs empruntent en les remaniant certaines représentations et pratiques à la sphère étatique en les intégrant dans les champs de l'ancestralité.

This dissertation explores the presence of the divine feminine in Indic river myths of the Ganga, the Narmada, and the Meenachil as represented in the three novels: Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide, Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra, and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. It challenges masculinist nationalistic narratives, and identifies itself as a feminist revisionist work by strategically combining Indian debates on religious interpretations with Western phenomenological and psychoanalytical perspectives to open up productive lines of critical enquiry. I argue that the three postcolonial novelists under survey resurrect the power of the feminine by relocating this power in its manifestation as the turbulent and indomitable force of three river goddesses. In their myths of origin, the goddesses are “unchaste,” uncontainable, and ambiguous. Yet, Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian patriarchy manipulated and coerced women for their political purposes. They denied female agency in order to promote a brand of nationalism bordering on religious zeal and subjugation through imposed paradigms of chastity. The patriarchy conflated the imaginary chastity of the mother goddess in her multiple manifestations--including but not limited to the River Ganga--with the exalted position forced upon the young Indian widow. Popular art of the colonial period in India dismantled the irrepressible sexual ambiguity of the divine feminine for the Indian population, and reinvented her as a chaste, mother figure (Bharat Mata, or Mother India), desexualized her, and held her up as an iconic, pervasive figurehead of the Motherland. Ironically though, the makeover of the uncontrollable, “chaotic” feminine into this shackled entity during and after the Indian freedom struggle is just the kind of ambiguity that appears in discourses of nation building. By reaffirming the archaic myths of the feminine, Ghosh, Mehta, and Roy dislodge the colonial project and the patriarchal Indian independence movement that sought to “chastise” the divine feminine. I suggest that in these three novels pre-colonial images of the river goddesses--presented in all their ambiguous, multiple, and fluid dimensions--are a challenge to the Indian nationalist project that represents the goddesses one dimensionally as an iconic figure, unifying the geo-body of India and symbolically projecting her as the pure, homogenous Bharat Mata.