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Nation and Diaspora As Opposing Concepts

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Nation and Diaspora As Opposing Concepts ABSTRACT Scholars have often viewed nation and diaspora as opposing concepts. Such a binary perception is not useful for the establishment of a harmonious nation where multi-diasporic groups are compelled to cohabit. This study attempts to reconcile nation and diaspora. Reading Earl Lovelace’s fiction, I argue that in ethnically diverse countries like Trinidad, migrant populations can maintain their specific diasporic identities and still come together as a nation. Trinidad is inhabited by diasporas and its various people should be seen as such. In this study, the main diasporas in Trinidad include Afro-Trinidadians, Indo- Trinidadians, and white Creoles. Other minor diasporic groups include the Chinese, the Lebanese, and Syrians. The diasporic conception of Trinidad, where the original natives are a small minority, helps to ward off any autochthonous, indigenous and tribal territorial claims that potentially disrupt the social fabric. I argue that the promotion of diasporic consciousness can be a sine qua non pathway towards the formation of a consolidated multi-ethnic island of Trinidad. In practical terms, this means that the different diasporas in Trinidad are likely to come together if they are allowed to revitalize homeland cultures as they contribute to the national space. This study traces the evolution of Lovelace’s nationalist discourse, which progresses from a focus on the Afro-Caribbean male diaspora to an incorporation of other diasporas as well as women, as he imaginatively figures the future of the Trinidadian nation. This shift underscores Lovelace’s growing self-consciousness about the imperative to negotiate and reconstruct ethnic and gender identities in order to create a diverse Trinidadian nation. ©Copyright by Chérif Saloum Diatta, 2015 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my dissertation committee chair, Dr. Supriya Nair, Professor of English at Tulane University, for her meticulous guidance and tremendous support. I would also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Felipe Smith in English and Dr. Jean G. Bidima in French. I appreciate their considerable contribution to the completion of this project. I am also grateful to Dr. James Huck, my academic advisor at the Stone Center for Latin American and Caribbean studies. His counsel and endless support facilitated my experience throughout my program. Special mention to Dr. Kenneth Harrow, Professor of English at Michigan State University, who first introduced me to Caribbean literature and inspired my love in this field of study. I must also thank Earl Lovelace and Dr. Funso Aiyejina for honoring me with their precious time, answering my questions patiently during our interviews. I am indebted to my wife, Astou Gawane Bodian, for her affection and moral support, and for staying up with me during the innumerable nights I spent writing my dissertation. I also owe a lot to my family in Senegal for their love and constant support despite the long distance between us. I would like to name my mother, Khady Goudiaby, my brothers and sisters, my relatives, in particular my aunt Khady Touty Sonko and my grandfather Youssouph Goudiaby. Thank you very much for believing in me. Last, I would like to pay tribute to my late uncle who raised me, Saloum Goudiaby. This work is dedicated to him. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................... ii INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1 1. Framing Earl Lovelace in Twentieth-Century Caribbean Literature .. 1 2. Nation and Diaspora: Redefining Caribbean Nationalism ............... 16 PART I. ON AFRICAN DIASPORA AND COMMUNITY SPACE ..... 30 CHAPTER ONE: MASKS OF RESISTANCE: MIMICRY AND CULTURAL SURVIVAL IN THE WINE OF ASTONISHMENT ............................................. 31 1. Ideological and Violent Colonial Oppression ................................... 34 2. Violent Resistance and “Infrapolitics” .............................................. 41 3. Mimicry and Creole Culture ............................................................. 70 CHAPTER TWO: THE AFRO-CARIBBEAN FAMILY, CITIZEN CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NATION-STATE IN WHILE GODS ARE FALLING ....... 79 1. The Afro-Caribbean Family as National Political Allegory .............. 80 2. The Citizen and Society: Internalizing Responsibility, Participation and Freedom ................................................................................. 105 PART II. THE ISLAND AND ITS DIASPORAS: IDENTITY PLURALISM AND THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL SPACE ... 125 iii CHAPTER THREE: ETHNIC ESSENTIALISM, CULTURAL PERFORMANCE AND THE FORMATION OF A MULTI-DIASPORIC NATION IN THE DRAGON CAN’T DANCE, SALT, AND IS JUST A MOVIE ............................ 126 1. Afro-Caribbeans vs Indo-Caribbeans: The Roots of Ethnic Dissension ..................................................................................... 128 2. Resolving National Fragmentation Through Performative Art ....... 173 CHAPTER FOUR: HISTORY, NARRATION, AND ETHICAL REPARATION IN SALT AND IS JUST A MOVIE ................................................................ 191 1. Recovering History, Reclaiming National Space ........................... 192 2. Multiple Voices: Re-narrativization of History and Ethical Reparation ..................................................................................... 230 CHAPTER FIVE: GENDER, ETHNICITY, AND NEW NATIONAL VISION ............. 248 1. Beyond Domestic Roles: Caribbean Women as Agents ............... 249 2. Revisiting Patriarchy: Transcending Ethnic Hegemonic Masculinity and Reconstructing National Identities ......................................... 269 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................... 290 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................ 302 iv 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Framing Earl Lovelace in Twentieth-Century Caribbean Literature Born in Toco, Trinidad, in 1935, Earl Lovelace is one of the most distinguished writers in Caribbean literature. His fiction includes six novels: While Gods are Falling (1965); The School Master (1968); The Dragon Can’t Dance (1979); The Wine of Astonishment (1982); Salt (1996); and Is Just a Movie (2011). His publications also include a short story collection, A Brief Conversion & Other Stories (1988), and a collection of plays, Jestina’s Calypso and Other Plays (1984). Lovelace has additionally written a good number of essays and articles, many of them collected in Growing in the Dark (2003), a volume edited by Funso Aiyejina. In his diverse work, Lovelace focuses on his island-nation, Trinidad, and the socio-political issues originating from British colonization, heightened by ethnic essentialism and electoral politics after independence. The Trinidad that Lovelace describes is in a state of dispossession and darkness, out of which it has to emerge as a nation. His fiction enacts the dichotomies of degradation and salvation. Salvation often comes through communal or individual struggle for selfhood repeatedly enacted in his narratives. Lovelace’s fiction largely speaks through social realism. He focuses on his island and its social realities, inspired by historical events in the region, such as the Black Power Movement in Trinidad. Lovelace’s texts mirror the life of his fellow Trinidadians, with an emphasis on the challenges the lower classes face. 2 His fiction particularly demonstrates a concern for the oppressed and the destitute, though some critics have argued that he is more sympathetic to the African poor than to impoverished East Indians. Lovelace, however, insists that he has a concern for poverty across ethnic and gender lines. He emphasizes the African poor only to show that they have had a particularly bad deal. Wine, Dragon, and Salt represent lower-class Afro-Trinidadian protagonists struggling for the preservation of their dignity. For instance, Wine portrays Spiritual Baptist followers, mainly Afro-Trinidadian villagers, who resist the colonial attempt to suppress their religion. Aldrick in Dragon and Bango in Salt are lower-class Afro- Trinidadian protagonists who engage in resistance against the forces that keep down their community. Lovelace’s main protagonists primarily derive from second-class citizens, which makes him, like Frantz Fanon, emphasize that revolution and change often operate from below. Lovelace belongs to the Anglophone nationalist Caribbean writers’ generation, which mainly flourished in the second half of the twentieth century. This group includes St. Lucian Derek Walcott, Trinidadians Samuel Selvon and V. S. Naipaul, Guyanese Wilson Harris and Barbadians Kamau Brathwaite and George Lamming. These writers have been given more critical attention than Lovelace. Walcott and Naipaul, in particular, have each won the Nobel Prize in literature. The popular critical reception of these writers does not only stem from the fact that they produced outstanding works, but also because they were more familiar to the Western metropolis. While Harris, Selvon, Walcott, Naipaul, Brathwaite, and Lamming have lived outside the Caribbean, principally in 3 England and in the United States, Lovelace has mostly stayed on his island. His relative isolation from the Western world can explain the fact that his literary work has not received as much attention from metropolitan critics. The lack of critical attention
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