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Maternal Narratives and Articulations of Black Women's Diaspora Identity

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Maternal Narratives and Articulations of Black Women's Diaspora Identity BODIED KNOWLEDGES (WHERE OUR BLOOD IS BORN): Maternal Narratives And Articulations of Black Women’s Diaspora Identity A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY helen j. crump IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dr. Amy K. Kaminsky and Dr. Gwendolyn D. Pough, Advisers DECEMBER 2010 © helen j. crump 2010 i Acknowledgements The journey to completion has been a long one, but it has brought me numerous and diverse opportunities, amazing insights, and various chances to meet some wonderful people along the way. In part, this process has been about finding and learning about women’s literature and black women of the African Diaspora, myself included. As Maryse Condé has stated, literature is a means of searching for and expressing the self, a way “to situate yourself in the world, to define yourself in relationship to others and to yourself” (73). I acknowledge the following people and institutions that have provided support, encouragement, positive thoughts, kind words, a smile, prayers, funding, a safe space, feedback, and more as I have worked to situate myself. First, to my Dissertation Committee, I appreciate your patience and lasting faith: to Dr. Amy K. Kaminsky and Dr. Gwendolyn D. Pough, my advisors, and Dr. Jigna Desai, my committee chair, I am grateful for the intellectual and professional encouragement, and I thank you for seeing what I couldn’t immediately envision; to Dr. John S. Wright, you inspire me to achieve greatness (and to expand my book collection); to Dr. Lisa Albrecht, thank you so much for stepping in on such short notice – it seems we’ve come full-circle. Although not able to complete this journey with me, Dr. Michelle M. Wright, I thank you for your enthusiastic assistance and mentoring, a much-needed and valued research assistantship and the continued encouragement toward academic accomplishment. My appreciation is boundless. To the administrators, faculty, and staff at Minnesota State University Mankato, in various ways, you made me feel welcome during my tenure at Minnesota State, and I thank you for your efforts. To my colleagues of the Gender and Women’s Studies Department, my sincere gratitude: Dr. Susan Freeman for recruiting me to the Office of Institutional Diversity Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Program and the friendship; Dr. Maria Bevacqua for the professional support, conversations, and hospitality; Dr. Jocelyn Fenton Stitt for the enthusiastic response to and wonderful suggestions on earlier drafts and for the delightful though too few chats about the literature – I wish we could have talked more, so let’s keep in touch and keep the conversations going; and Cynthia Veldhuisen for all of your assistance and a welcoming smile. To the Law Enforcement Program Faculty, thank you for your willingness to help me learn the ropes. To additional Administrators and Faculty: Dr. John Alessio, Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, I appreciate your efforts on my behalf and the words of encouragement that provided more help than you know; Dr. Scott Olson, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, and Dr. Michael Fagin, Ethnic Studies Faculty and Former Dean of Institutional Diversity, thank you both for your encouragement, faith in my abilities, and dedication to the Pre-Doctoral Program; Dr. Avra Johnson, I am grateful for your othermothering that made me feel welcome and kept me on task; and Maria Baxter-Nuamah I enjoyed the friendly chats – best wishes on your journey. And thank you to members of the Black Alliance, the Women’s Center, and the LGBT Center for your professional assistance. ii Thank you to the Faculty and Staff of the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Minnesota for the academic and professional grounding; a special thanks to Idalia Robles: your assistance was priceless. In addition, I would not have been able to accomplish all that I have without the financial support provided by several grants and fellowships, and their respective committees, including the following: the U of M Graduate School’s DOVE Fellowship, the U of M ICGC MacArthur Fellowship, various GWSS Travel Grants that enabled me to attend and present at conferences, the U of M College of Liberal Arts Graduate Research Partnership Program Grant (with Dr. Gwendolyn Pough), the GWSS Susan Geiger Summer Fellowship Grant (with Dr. Michelle M. Wright), the Cornell University Africana Studies Research Center’s Africana Summer Institute Fellowship, and the Minnesota State Mankato Office of Institutional Diversity Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. Significantly, my journey would not have been as successful without the presence and thoughtfulness of key people who have been unshakeable in their enthusiasm and unconditional in their love and encouragement. To my dear friends, near and far, who have been sources of professional and social support, positive thoughts, prayers, and lots and lots of inspiration: Denise Berkhalter, Vicki Davidson (you’re next), Melissa Quimby Dodd, Tyson Moore, Eileen Muller Myrdahl, Evelyne Payne, Rachel Raimist, Rosetta Summers, Karen Wallace, Ayana Weekley, and Charissa Wilson. Asante! More specifically, to Rachel, the friendship, conversations, and opportunities to hang out with you and your family have been invaluable. To my “Diss Writing Group,” Ayana and Eileen: Ayana, my friend, I’ve enjoyed our too long days and nights posted up in coffee shops, library basements, or the grad office as we worked, grading, reading, and writing, the conversations about most everything, and the conference companionship. Thank you for the occasional nudging and encouraging me to believe in my “rock star” status. Unbeknownst to you, you were often a source of sanity during our matriculation at the U and afterwards. Eileen, I’ve so enjoyed getting to know you, and I’m glad we’ve become friends. For the chats and continuing to advise me through to the defense: thank you so much for reading, discussing, and commenting on earlier drafts of the dissertation. It means more than I can say at this moment. Finally and most importantly, I thank the many family members who have loved and cared for me, who have continued to offer prayers, kind words, places to stay, warm meals, loving hugs, and friendly and safe spaces. Thank you all for your stories and your experiences. To my parents Lois and Alfonso and siblings Lois, Fonso, and Chris; my aunt Belinda Faye, maternal grandmother Helen Taylor, and my paternal grandmother Jennie Ruth: we say that words are not necessary because our actions speak for us, but I would be remiss were I not to acknowledge you and how blessed I am because of you. Dad, it began with you, my role model; Mom, it continued with you and our family stories: to you both, I am because you are. iii And to my Minnesota cousins – Annie Laura Brown, Marian Brown-Moore, and Jacquie and Charles Williams and their children and extended family – words are not enough to express my gratitude for the sense of belonging you provided me so far away from home. My family, I appreciate and love you all. And to anyone I’ve forgotten to name, I remember you in my heart. iv Dedication To my parents and siblings who have loved and supported me unconditionally: Lois A. W. Crump Alfonso W. Crump, Jr. Lois A. Crump Alfonso W. Crump, III Christopher H. Crump & To my grandmothers and other mothers for their spiritual guidance: Helen Taylor Waters Jennie Ruth Crump Belinda Faye Waters Annie Laura Brown & To my ancestors and angels who have watched over me: I cannot name you individually, but I acknowledge you wholeheartedly. I am so blessed, my cup runneth over. v Abstract My dissertation titled Bodied Knowledges (Where Our Blood Is Born): Maternal Narratives and Articulations of Black Women’s Diaspora Identity is an intervention in black diasporic criticism and black feminism. It highlights black women’s diaspora literature, maternal narratives, and interrogations of identity. I employ a black feminist diaspora literary lens to identify, define, trace, and speak to the African Diaspora as it functions in black women’s diaspora fiction and informs our understanding of black women’s diaspora identity. My study considers three authors and novels by women of, in, and across the African Diaspora. In my thesis, I center Sandra Jackson-Opoku’s The River Where Blood Is Born as a primary site of analysis of diaspora formation and theorization, and I examine Dionne Brand’s At the Full and Change of the Moon and Maryse Condé’s Desirada as comparative textual and theoretical sites. I contend that black women writers, with a certain intentionality, use their novels to articulate a woman-centered generationality located inside and throughout the African Diaspora, doing so in order to theorize both the structure of that diaspora and black women’s identity within and as part of it. To address this theory, I focus on motherhood / mothering, a common role associated with women, and name and discuss specific maternal narratives as sites through which to delineate and interrogate the intersection of identity and Diaspora. Drawing on specific diaspora frameworks, such as that proposed by Kim Butler in “Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse” and Brent Hayes Edwards in “The Uses of Diaspora”, I conduct a close examination of the primary novels, addressing the maternal discourse and the Diaspora construction in each. Moreover, these texts are woman-centered, which, I argue, re-locates diaspora from a traditionally
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