Beckett, Jason A. (2005) the End of Customary International Law? : a Purposive Analysis of Structural Indeterminacy. Phd Thesis
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Beckett, Jason A. (2005) The end of customary international law? : a purposive analysis of structural indeterminacy. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2756/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] University of Glasgow French Department November 2005 Repossession of a Cultural Space in Francophone Native Literature from Quebec Marion Bernard ýW- Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirementsfor the degreeof Doctor of philosophy Abstract Francophone Native literature from Quebec is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first anthology' of this literature was published in 2004. Although Native writing started as early as the 18th century with the teaching of missionaries, it is only since the 1970s that Native authors from Quebec began to write fictional works increasingly. Due to their historical past, social and economic situation, Native authors have only recently slightly moved away from political issues. These authors have adopted and adapted Western literary forms so that they would be able to express the specificities of their cultures and beliefs. Despite their literary evolution, there are very few articles and no book providing a critical literary analysis of their works. Indeed, their works are most of the time only considered as a source of factual information on Native people. This thesis aims at highlighting the core elements of this literature and at demonstrating its specificities. The main corpus for this research is composed of seventeenworks written by nine authors. Poetry and plays tend to be favoured by Native authors over novels and short stories; their closenessto oral tradition can be seenas one of the main reasonsfor such choices.- By way of introduction to the topic, I summarize the historical, social and literary evolution of Native people in Quebec. In order to understandthe founding of this literature, it is necessaryto trace back the dramatic changesQuebec Native people went through since their first contact with White people. I problematize my research with references to postcolonial theories as the authors' situation as ex-colonised people echoesthe issuesraised in this particular field. However, I also refer to other theorists like Doreen Massey or Anthony Giddens when necessary.I have chosen a multitheoretical approach in order to highlight the specificities of this literature. The focus of the next chapters derives from these considerations. The second chapter examineshow they representthemselves and others. The third chapter highlights how their recurrent representationsof past events serve to the construction of a Native discourse. The fourth chapter is concerned with their representationsof their own environment and demonstrateshow they tie in past conceptionsof nature with modern needs.The, final chapter shows how using the French language can contribute to their repossessionof a cultural space within Quebec society. Using the ex-coloniser's languageshows a desire for recognition as well as subversion. This is a field of research not yet widely discussed. While there have been many examinations of Native works in English (whether Canadianor American), this is the first literary critical approachof FrancophoneNative writing. This investigation plays a crucial role in the understanding of Native literature within Canada, as it concurs in some ways with the rest of Canadian Native literature and of Native literature at large, and in others detachesitself as Native authors from Quebec have their own specificities. ' Maurizio Gatti, Litterature arnerindienne du Quebec. Ecrits de tangue francaise (Montreal: Hurtubise, 2004) Table of Contents Abstract i Table of Contents -- ii Acknowledgements iv INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE: Context 9 I. Historical and Political Background 11 I. 1. Life Before and After the European Presence until the War of 1812-1814 11 1.2. From the 19th Century till 1969 23 1.3.1969 onwards 29 II. The Evolution of Native literature in Quebec and the Rest of Canada 38 11.1. Oral Literature 38 11.2.From Orality to the Written Word 46 11.3. A Short Comparison with Native Canadian Literature in English 60 CHAPTER TWO: Assertion of Identity/Identities 73 1. Representationof Themselves 81 I. 1. Individual and Collective Voices 81 1.2. Gender 91 1.3. Gap between Generations 101 II. Representation of Others 109 11.1.The Coloniser as Other 110 11.2.Transculturation and the Internal Other 125 CHAPTER THREE: Memory/Past 135 I Reconstructingthe Past as a Historical Process 140 I. 1. Recurrenceof Certain Images and Selective Memory 140 1.2. Counter-Discourse:Ambivalence or Birth of a Native Discourse? 159 II. Mythological Elements: Negotiating the Past within the Present 168 11.1.Mixing the Past and the Present;the Circularity of Life 169 11.2.Strength in the Past and Therapeutic Writing 178 CHAPTER FOUR: Place, Territory and Space 188 1. GeographicalRepresentations 193 I. 1. Territorial Claims 194 1.2. QuebecLandscapes and Other places 199 II Imagined Territories, Mother Earth, Modern and Ancient Beliefs 210 CHAPTER FIVE: Language 229 1. Writing in French: Ambivalence or Act of Resistance? 236 II. Hybridity of the French Language: Code-Mixing and Interference, Creation of a Third Space 249 CONCLUSION 258 11 BIBLIOGRAPHY 267 iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank some of the many people who made the completion of this project possible. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Bill Marshall, whose patience, unfailing support and good advice have enabled me to finish this project. The members of staff in the French Department of Glasgow University have also shown much support and kindness. I would like to thank particularly Professor Noel Peacock, Mr William Dickson, Dr James Simpson, Dr John Campbell and Dr Geoff Woollen, and especially Dr Peter Davies without whom this thesis would have never been undertaken. The community of postgraduate students in the Modern Languages Building have also been a great encouragement. I would like to thank in particular Catriona Cunningham, Lesley Rankin and Cristina Johnston. Thanks are also due to the AHRB providing me with monetary assistance for the last year of my doctoral research, and the AIEQ for their financial support which has enabled me to participate in several conferences. I want here to acknowledgethe precious help that Maurizio Gatti gave me during my first visit to Quebec.His enthusiasmand knowledge of the subject have kept me on track and comforted me in undertaking such an unusual project. I would also like to thank Professor Denys Deläge from the University of Laval whose advice and generosity helped make my period of researchin Quebec successful.Thanks are also due to the various Native people I have encounteredduring my stay in Quebec who have kindly sharedtheir thoughts and experiencewith me. There are others, close friends and work colleagues, who deserve gratitude for their intellectual and emotional support: Niall and Gaynor Broomfield, Rhona Brown, Paula Carson, Tony Clancy, Martin Fowlie, Catherine Franc, Kirsty Hutchison, Jules Jones, Claire Kennedy, Euan McKay, Fiona McPhie, Katja Riek, Bindi and Sheila Russell, Catherine Simmonds, Ingrid Stephenson, Gordon Stewart, Sophie Thomas, Michael Venditozzi and Stephen Woodruff. I would also like to thank my parents and GeorgesCacheux, who, despite not always understandingmy research,have given me their support, and helped me complete this project. Finally, I am deeply indebted to Dan O'Carroll, the most important person in my life, whose love and generosity have unfailingly carried me through during the last months of completion. His good humour and intellectual inquisitiveness have been a constant sourceof motivation and inspiration. iv Introduction lk Francophone Native literature from Quebec is a fairly recent phenomenon. Native writing from Quebec has been considered as forming a literature only for the past ten 2 years, thanks to researchers such as Maurizio Gattiland Diane Boudreau. Quebec Native writing started in the 17"' century with the presence of missionaries who transcribed the languages they heard into written systems in order to convert the different groups of Indians3 they encountered. These religious men taught the Indians the written languages they had created. From the very beginning, politics and the process of writing have been deeply intertwined, notably because the first pieces of Native independent writing took the form of petitions to those who were in power at the time. Francophone Native literature has evolved since the 1970s, moving away from an essentially political agenda to a more creative and literary line of development. Whereas it is possible to find a good number of anthologies and literary analysis about Native literature in English (whether Canadian or American), there have been only two books published so far on Francophone Native literature. The first, Histoire de la litterature amerindienne dii Quebec: oralite et ecriture4