This project examines the question of memory and cross-cultural identities in the context of diasporic cultures, focusing in particular on the works of two Algerian women: Fadhma Amrouche and her daughter Taos Amrouche. Both occupy a unique position in Maghrebian literature. Precursors of womens writing in Algeria, their works reflect the experience of exile and displacement, and the shift from orality to the written word, from artistic creation to preservation of cultural patrimony, from identity crisis to a quest of ones own cultural identity. Women writers at this time were marginalized and Fadhmas and Taos marginalization appear as threefold. Firstly, they belong to a Berber ethnic minority in a country that is mainly Arab. Secondly, from a religious point of view, they are Christian in a predominantly Muslim country. Finally, Fadhmas and Taos French education enables them to pass from a traditional oral culture to the written culture of men and as a consequence to experience cultural alienation in the process. This study explores how both authors articulate through writing, a mémoire of the sufferings and desires of Berber women in a society that has repressed their voices or has confined them to the domain of the spoken.
French colonial occupation of Algeria radically changed womens lives. Colonial officials and European settlers manipulated representations of Algerian women - both visual and textual to suit the needs of imperialist designs. Women were often viewed as victims: silent, veiled, submissive and oppressed. This tendency to represent women as victims reinforced the colonizers belief that Algerian culture was backward. This study considers Fadhmas and Taos texts as response to the destructive colonial practice of fictionalizing native womens lives. Autobiographical writing provides a site from which they can assert their subjectivity, a site of resistance in a context of colonial and cultural oppression. In these womens texts, we examine the various ways that gender, ethnicity, race, class and religious affiliation intersect and shape their lives, and explore their various strategies of negotiation and resistance to dominant and oppressive discourses.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-11102006-083842 |
| Date | 10 November 2006 |
| Creators | Malti, Nathalie |
| Contributors | Nathaniel Wing, Jack Yeager, Katharine Jensen, Pius Ngandu, Anne Coldiron |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11102006-083842/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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