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ACCESS The Williams College Libraries are investigating the posting of theses online, as well as their retention in hardcopy. ...L-.Williams College is granted permission to maintain and provide access to my thesis in hardcopy and via the Web both on and off campus. Selecting this option allows researchers around the world to access the digital your work. Pursuing Power in the Postcolonial City: The Women ofLa noire de"." and Paat Kine By MoHy M. Klaisner Professor Katarzyna Pieprzak, Advisor A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the Degree ofBachelor ofArts with Honors in Literary Studies Williams College Williamstown, Massachusetts MayS, 2009 Acknowledgements I am deeply indebted to my advisor, Professor Katarzyna Pieprzak, for her enthusiasm, expertise, and steady nerves in helping me with this project. I also want to thank Professor Stephane Robolin for being my second reader and for providing me with many ofthe theoretical tools I put to use in my analysis. I want to acknowledge Professor Christopher Bolton, who has helped me clarify so much about my own thinking and writing, and to recognize Professor Jana Sawicki, whose course has enriched my understanding offeminist and philosophical issues a great deal. I am grateful for everyone who tirelessly extracted extra commas from my drafts, particularly my father, Yanie Fecu, Matthew Wollin, Patricia Klein, and Silvia Juliana Mantilla Ortiz. I want to thank the Sambou family in Dakar as well as my dearest friends at Williams- Arletta, Bill, Christian, Joel, Lauren, Matt, Nico, Sean, and Silvia-who provided me with so much pleasant distraction along the way. I am also very grateful to those who encouraged me to start this project in the first place, particularly Doug Ehlert, Rebecca Slocum, and Professor Gail Newman. Finally and most importantly, I want to thank my parents, my brother, Jake, and my sister, Abby, for their constant love and support. 2 Table ofContents Introduction .................................... 4 A Life Dedicated to Activism ............................7 Colonial and Post-Colonial Contexts . 10 Critical Perspectives on Sembene . 13 A New Approach to La Noire de ... and Faat Kine . .....•.......... 16 Part I: Seeing the Sights, Returning the Gaze: Visu.al Privilege and Su.bjectivity in La noire de... .................................... 22 Subjectivity and the Sublime ............................ 23 Exploring White Spaces. .............................. 25 The Servant Becomes Spectacle. .......... .. .............. 28 The Moth Pursues the Flame 31 White Guilt, Black Masks ........... .. ................. 34 Part II: Female Power in a Changing Landscape: Sembene's Faat Kine ... 39 A Peugeot ofOne's Own .......... .. ................... 40 A Donkey Disguised as a Camel ........... .. .............. 42 Oppression as the "African Way" .... 47 A Conflicted Superwoman. ........ 49 Wiggling Toes and Political Imperatives 54 Conclusion. .D ••• O ••••••••• e ••••••••••• ., . 58 Works Cited ......... .. .......................... 63 3 Introduction When I first went to Dakar, Senegal in the fall of2007, the Senegalese media was abuzz with reports about Taxi Sisters, a new government program that had established a fleet offemale taxi drivers in the city. Everywhere, in the news, on the street, around the dinner table, everyone wanted to talk about this new program and why it was either inspired or idiotic. My host mother declared, "At last, men will have to share the road!" But my host brother teased her, "You can put women on the road, but that does not mean they can drive!" Yet, whatever one's opinion ofTaxi Sisters, everybody was always on the lookout for their distinctive new cabs. Whenever someone was lucky enough to spot one, everyone in the streets would point and exclaim, "Taxi Sister!" and wave to the driver as she drove past. Though not embraced by everybody, Taxi Sisters was a major breakthrough for women trying to find work in Dakar's male-dominated professions. For a long time, most occupations in Senegalese society were considered taboo for women, who could only earn money as craftswomen in the Senegalese open-air markets. But now, as employment opportunities for women became more numerous, this is rapidly changing. I was able to observe this phenomenon in my own host family. My host mother, Odile, had been her family's breadwinner for two years since her husband had passed away. An administrative assistant at the Assemblee Nationale, Senegal's lower house of parliament, Odile earned enough money to support four children, in addition to the foreign students she hosted. The household maid, DjeIiba, had migrated from her rural home in southern Senegal to work in Dakar, sending much ofher wages to her family 4 back home. My host sister, Sire, was still in school, but talked about joining Senegal's military when she finished. In the changing economy and society ofDakar, I observed these women pursue these new advantages in the hope ofgaining money, mobility, and power. Yet, in a way, my host brother may have been right-just because you put women on the road does not mean they can drive. Were these changes really allowing women to advance? I often saw female cab drivers being harassed by taxi-men, who were resentful oftheir new competition and the Sisters' government support. My host mother, though she earned a decent salary, had to leave the house before dawn each day and return long after sundown. Though women have become highly visible in the Senegalese economy, are they reaping the benefits? What real social changes are occurring and what sort of power do they really offer women? In thinking about women's roles in Dakar, I want to turn to the work of Ousmane Sembene, whose books, short stories, and films have illuminated the struggles ofSenegalese women to gain empowerment in a male-dominated society. During his lifetime, Sembene observed and narrated women's changing roles in Dakar, as the city transformed from strategic colonial port, to capital ofan independent Senegal, to cosmopolitan hub ofmultinational companies and discotheques. In this thesis, I will look at two ofSembene's films that address the changing roles ofwomen in urban space: La noire de ... (1966), one ofhis first films, and Faat Kine (2000), one ofhis final films. Though Sembene addresses the issue offemale empowerment in many ofhis works, the potential for power gain and loss is never starker than in these two films. La 5 noire de ... tells the story ofDiouana, a poor Senegalese woman living in Dakar, who tries to gain a sense ofagency through employment. But her pursuit ofpower backfires when she becomes a mistreated servant to a French family. Treated as an object, Diouana is divested ofwhat little agency she once had. To regain her sense ofself, she is forced to take the one step that remains in her power, choosing to take her own life rather than live a life ofservitude. Nearly thirty-five years later, Sembene picks up this same theme in Faat Kine. Kine, like Diouana, is a poor Dakaroise who is similarly victimized, abused and cast away by every man she meets. As in Diouana's case, Kine tries to exert control over her life by earning a wage, [mally obtaining work as a gas station attendant.