5 research outputs found
“Women in an Alien Land”- Nuances of Diasporic Identity and Survival in Bharati Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters
No full textBharati Mukherjee, an Indian Born, Canadian/ American novelist has made a deep impression on the literary canvass. The prime premise of her works is the issues encountered by women in the foreign atmosphere. As a diasporic author most of her characters are ‘displaced’ and ‘alienated’ from the land of origin to USA where they are ‘simultaneously invisible’ as an individual and ‘overexposed’ as a racial minority. Focusing on Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters, first of the trilogy including The Tree Bride and Miss New India, the present paper attempts to analyze the complexities of diasporic identity and the process of re-birth and re-invention of Indian women immigrants to adapt in the new world. A story of three sisters- Padma, Parvati and Tara, the novel showcases the problems of identity of Indian immigrant women in an alien society as they suffer from ‘no greater visibility but great marginality’. The problem with these sisters is not only that are immigrants but what makes their condition worse is their gender as well. Being with the label of ‘second sex’, these women are often confronted by a double quest- quest for identity as a woman first and second as a displaced human being in an alien world. The diasporic situation in fact entangles the sisters into a maze- standing between two worlds-with complex realities of unequal cultural dynamics of the traditional homeland and liberal spaces of host land- they tend to experience conflicting subjectivities of freedom and subjugation, yet they do find a way for self-exploration and deliberation to conceive new identities and move beyond the fixed definitions of diasporic Indian women. So, my paper will be a modest attempt to unravel the nuances of diasporic identity which is always a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’ and to highlight the extremely individualistic ways of survival of the three immigrant sisters in an apparently alien culture
Post-memory and the Problem with National and Individual Identity Presented in Contemporary Mauritian Literature in French
No full textIn the article the author analyses the influence of post-memory in the formation of national and individual identity among the inhabitants of the young Republic of Mauritius presented in contemporary Mauritian literature in French. Important and at the same time tragic historical events of Mauritius are: slavery, the arrival and labour of indentured workers from India and the tragedy of the Chagos Islanders. The author analyses some texts by Ananda Devi and Shenaz Patel in which both writers describe the impact of ancestral history on the lives of characters representing the next generation from different ethnic groups living on the island. In her analysis, the author refers to the works of Marianne Hirsch, Paul Ricoeur and Alex Mucchielli
Chagos in ‘Blue’: Fortress conservation, archipelagic network and militarized science
No full textAround 1500 Chagos Islanders were expelled from the Chagos Archipelago and moved to Mauritius and Seychelles between 1965 and 1973. Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos, became a US military base. The Chagos Marine Protected Area (MPA) was established in 2010 and currently acts as legal ammunition against Chagossians’ claims for their rights of return and abode. This article uncovers the multi-layered impacts of the Chagos MPA as fortress conservation by conducting a multiscale spatial analysis and addresses the epistemic system(s) of power. It pays particular attention to colonial and imperial legacies in the construction of environmental science, a planetary-scale archipelagic network, and the rhetoric of ecological (in)security. The politics of coconut manifested in the Barton Point restoration project substantiates claims of spatial and epistemic violence. This article further describes Chagossian strategies of resistance using the works of Clement Siatous and Shenaz Patel. It concludes by arguing against the coupling of military occupation with an environmental fortress that conceals and perpetuates historical injustice. Chagos ecology is storied, layered and laminated through human–land interactions. Chagossians’ imaginative accounts of a shared homeland are inspirational manifestos
Literacy and the vernacular : a case study based on the post-colonial history of Mauritius, with particular reference to Mauritian Creole
No full textThis thesis examines the process of the literization of the vernacular, and seeks to establish the island of Mauritius as a case study of this process. The concept of literization equates standardization of the vernacular with its use as a written language. Four issues are established as central to this process: ideological, educational, sociocultural and technical.
The thesis investigates the particular sociolinguistic situation of Mauritius, and examines each of these issues in relation to Mauritian Creole. It demonstrates the role that Mauritian Creole plays in Mauritian society, and how, since independence, issues relating to ideology, education, and the cultural and technical aspects of standardization, have been involved in the promotion of the language. The interaction between these issues is apparent throughout the thesis, and manifested in the work of Ledikasyon pu Travayer (LPT), the only organization in Mauritius to provide literacy tuition in Mauritian Creole. The thesis seeks to show that their unified approach to literacy, standardization, and the promotion of Mauritian Creole exemplifies the issues involved, and provides the best basis for the establishment of Mauritian Creole as a standard language.
The analysis of the situation in Mauritius within the framework of wider issues of the literization of the vernacular permits a comparison to other former colonies facing problems of language choice, and places these issues within the wider sociolinguistic context of standardization
De l'intime au social : l'écriture de l'enfance dans le roman francophone contemporain de Maurice et de la Réunion
No full textDans cette thèse, qui interroge la mise en écriture de l’enfance dans le roman contemporain de Maurice et de la Réunion, il s’agit d’analyser les dimensions suivantes : les modalités narratives, la construction, l’évolution et les fonctions du personnage enfant dans l’économie des textes, les rapports qu’il entretient avec les membres de sa famille et de son entourage immédiat, ainsi que la relation entre ces œuvres et leur contexte social et discursif.
Notre corpus inclut quatorze récits d’enfance fictionnels de dix écrivains et écrivaines des Mascareignes, publiés de 1987 à 2012 : du côté mauricien, Nathacha Appanah, Ananda Devi, Marie-Thérèse Humbert, Shenaz Patel, Amal Sewtohul et Carl de Souza; du côté réunionnais, Danielle Dambreville, François Dijoux, Axel Gauvin et Jean-François Samlong.
Dans ces romans, si la diversité et l’hybridité narratives, discursives et symboliques témoignent de l’imaginaire pluriel de ces sociétés hétérogènes, l’on retrouve néanmoins certaines grandes tendances, comme une écriture axée sur la mémoire du narrateur adulte ou sur l’expérience immédiate de l’enfant; des personnages enfants principalement souffrants, mal-aimés, subalternes et révoltés; ainsi que des familles et des sociétés dont le fonctionnement, les discours et les idéologies paraissent inappropriés, voire tout à fait néfastes.
Si certains de ces choix esthétiques reconduisent certaines conventions, d’autres incarnent une perspective tout à fait nouvelle, voire transgressive. Par exemple, les emprunts à d’autres formes génériques comme le conte ou le théâtre, certaines écritures tout à fait singulières, ainsi que le fréquent mélange des voix et des langages se distinguent clairement des normes établies. La maltraitance extrême des petites et jeunes filles et l’apparition de la figure de l’enfant violent semblent également inédites. Le point de vue et l’expérience de l’enfant jettent enfin un regard global, approfondi et foncièrement critique sur les sociétés mauricienne et réunionnaise du présent (surtout dans le cas mauricien) comme du passé (années 1930 à 1970), procédant ainsi à un contre-discours s’opposant aux images exotiques et bucoliques de l’île paradisiaque. Du statut de témoin à celui d’acteur, l’enfant permet à l’auteur d’aborder une série de motifs et de problématiques distinctifs de l’imaginaire et des littératures de l’océan Indien, tels que l’altérité, l’identité, l’histoire, la mémoire, etc.In this doctoral dissertation, which deals with childhood narratives in contemporary novels of Mauritius and Reunion Islands, we will examine the following dimensions: the narrative modalities, the construction, evolution and functions of the child protagonist within the texts, his relationship with different members of his family and the people around him, and the connection between these works and their social and discursive context.
Our corpus includes fourteen works of fiction from ten different Mascareignes writers, published from 1987 to 2012 : from Mauritius, Nathacha Appanah, Ananda Devi, Marie-Thérèse Humbert, Shenaz Patel, Amal Sewtohul et Carl de Souza; and from Reunion, Danielle Dambreville, François Dijoux, Axel Gauvin et Jean-François Samlong.
In these novels, if the narrative, discursive and symbolic diversity corresponds to the plural imaginative world of these heterogeneous societies, we can still find some significant trends, including narratives based on the adult’s memory or the child’s immediate experience; suffering, ill-treated, subaltern and rebellious child protagonists; families and societies whose general functioning, discourses and ideologies seem inappropriate, even harmful.
If some of these aesthetic choices partake of certain conventions, others embody a new and even transgressive approach. For example, borrowings from other generic forms like tales, theatre, etc., particular styles of writing and the frequent mixing of different voices and languages distinguish those texts from established norms. The extreme abuse of little girls and the appearance of violent children also seem original. The child’s experience and perspective provides a global, profound and inherently critical view of present-day and past societies of Mauritius and Reunion Islands, therefore providing a counter-discourse to the exotic and bucolic images of a paradise island. From being a witness to an actor, the child allows the author to explore a series of motives and issues distinct to the imaginative world and literatures of the Indian Ocean, like otherness, identity, history, memory, etc
