Citizens of a Genre: Forms, Fields and Practices of Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Ethnographic Fiction by Justin Izzo Department of Literature Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Michael Hardt, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Alice Kaplan, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Fredric Jameson ___________________________ Charles Piot ___________________________ Kenneth Surin Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Literature in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 i v ABSTRACT Citizens of a Genre: Forms, Fields and Practices of Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Ethnographic Fiction by Justin Izzo Department of Literature Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Michael Hardt, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Alice Kaplan, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Fredric Jameson ___________________________ Charles Piot ___________________________ Kenneth Surin An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Literature in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 Copyright by Justin Izzo 2011 Abstract This dissertation examines French and Francophone texts, contexts and thematic problems that comprise a genre I call ―ethnographic fiction,‖ whose development we can trace throughout the twentieth century in several geographic locations and in distinct historical moments. During the twentieth century in France, anthropology as an institutionalized discipline and ―literature‖ (writ large) were in constant communication with one another. On the one hand, many French anthropologists produced stylized works demonstrating aesthetic sensibilities that were increasingly difficult to classify. On the other hand, though, poets, philosophers and other literary intellectuals read, absorbed, commented on and attacked texts from anthropology. This century-long conversation produced an interdisciplinary conceptual field allowing French anthropology to borrow from and adapt models from literature at the same time as literature asserted itself as more than just an artistic enterprise and, indeed, as one whose epistemological prerogative was to contribute to and enrich the understanding of humankind and its cultural processes. In this dissertation I argue that fiction can be seen to travel in multiple directions within France‘s twentieth-century conversation between literature and anthropology such that we can observe the formation of a new genre, one comprised of texts that either explicitly or more implicitly fuse fictional forms and contents together with the methodological and representational imperatives of anthropology and iv ethnographic fieldwork. Additionally, I argue that fiction moves geographically as well, notably from the metropole to Francophone West Africa which became an anthropological hotspot in the twentieth century once extended field research was legitimated in France and armchair anthropology was thoroughly discredited. By investigating ethnographies, novels, memoirs and films produced in metropolitan France, Francophone West Africa, and the French Caribbean (including texts by by Michel Leiris, Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Jean Rouch, Jean-Claude Izzo and Raphaël Confiant) I aim to shed light on the kinds of work that elements of fiction perform in ethnographic texts and, by contrast, on how ethnographic concepts, strategies and fieldwork methods are implicitly or explicitly adopted and reformulated in more literarily oriented works of fiction. Ethnographic fiction as a genre, then, was born not only from the epistemological rapprochement of anthropology and literature in metropolitan France, but from complex and often fraught encounters with the very locations where anthropological praxis was carried out. v This dissertation is dedicated to my family. vi Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements..........................................................................................................viii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Itinerant Fictions: Colonial Cultures and Ethnographic Selfhood in L'Afrique fantôme and Oui mon commandant!................................................................................................22 Narrative, Improvisation, Modernity: Ethnographic Fiction in Jean Rouch‘s Jaguar and Moi, un Noir ...................................................................................................................... 92 Ethnography, Policing and Utopia in Jean-Claude Izzo‘s Fabio Montale Trilogy ......... 141 Conclusion: Raphaël Confiant‘s L’Allée des Soupirs and a Rereading of Ethnographic Fiction, or, Éloge de la Créolité Ethnographique ........................................................... 193 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 213 Filmography.....................................................................................................................222 Biography.........................................................................................................................224 vii Acknowledgements My advisors, Michael Hardt and Alice Kaplan, deserve not only credit but effusive praise for their critical input and collegial support offered at every stage in the dissertation process. This dissertation is better for their involvement and for the high standards to which they held me at every turn. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Michael Hardt, Alice Kaplan, Fredric Jameson, Charlie Piot and Ken Surin, whose enthusiasm and creativity infused my own thinking about this project long before there was a dissertation to speak of. Each page of this dissertation bears the mark of their influence. Alice and Charlie merit special attention, as do the Department of Cultural Anthropology and the Program in Literature at Duke, for their support, flexibility and inventiveness as they helped a young anthropologist find a home in literary studies. The intellectual trajectory they helped me trace is indicative of the kind of intellectual environment the humanities at Duke have to offer. One-on-one conversations, too, played a part in helping me flesh out my thinking about this project, especially in its early stages, and I would like to thank the following people for graciously allowing me to express ideas to them (in however inchoate a fashion) as this project began to take shape: Rebecca Stein, Fredric Jameson, Srinivas Aravamudan, Laurent Dubois, Charlie Piot, Frank Lentricchia, Pap Ndiaye, Étienne Balibar. I would also like to thank the EHESS in Paris, as well as Pap Ndiaye and Philippe Roger in viii particular, for welcoming me as a colleague in France. A conference on ―Afromodernisms‖ at the University of Liverpool, led by Kate Marsh and Fionnghuala Sweeney, gave me an invaluable opportunity to present my work on Jean Rouch and to receive fantastic feedback in return. Of course, friends and family have always been a constant source of inspiration and unconditional support. My parents and sister deserve praise (and probably various international prizes) for putting up with my eccentricities and for believing in me during those times when I lacked belief in myself. Certain friends have proved to be wonderful intellectual fellow travelers, such as Kinohi Nishikawa, Brantley Nicholson, Aaron Castroverde, Ryan Vu and Gerry Canavan. Nick Giffen and Deena Hannoun deserve praise for their hospitality and for the desire they share with me to watch a lot of soccer. Jean-Paul Alglave and Paul Ackermann welcomed me with open arms in Paris, making my second home feel in so many ways just like my first. Early on in my graduate career, Eli Gamboa and Sumeet Khemani gave me a standing invitation to visit them in New York City, an offer I gratefully accepted on many occasions. Numerous other friends and colleagues, too many than would be proper to mention here, have provided me with support, humor, insight and love over the years. They know who they are. Finally, I would like to thank Bruce Springsteen, whose music is a constant presence in my everyday life and who always seems to offer just the right amount of redemption at just the right time. ix Introduction This dissertation sets for itself the task of defining a genre, one that crosses the frontiers of a number of academic disciplines as well as the increasingly porous border between the humanities and the social sciences. More specifically, this dissertation examines key French and Francophone texts, contexts and thematic problems that comprise a genre I call ―ethnographic fiction,‖ whose development we can trace in several geographic locations and in distinct historical moments throughout the twentieth century. By investigating ethnographies, novels, memoirs and films produced both in metropolitan France and in Francophone West Africa, I aim to shed light on the kinds of work that elements of fiction perform in ethnographic texts and, by contrast, on how ethnographic concepts, strategies and fieldwork methods are implicitly or explicitly adopted and reformulated in more literarily