WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/westminsterresearch Space, place and spatial loss in North African and Canadian writing in French Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Languages This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © The Author, 2012. This is an exact reproduction of the paper copy held by the University of Westminster library. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Users are permitted to download and/or print one copy for non-commercial private study or research. Further distribution and any use of material from within this archive for profit-making enterprises or for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: (http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] SPACE, PLACE AND SPATIAL LOSS IN NORTH AFRICAN AND CANADIAN WRITING IN FRENCH JASMINA BOLFEK-RADOVANI A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University of Westminster for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy September 2012 Abstract Assumptions about space, argues the feminist geographer Doreen Massey, are such an integral part of intellectual and everyday discourse that we are often not conscious of their existence and significance, and yet, they have profound consequences for how society is organised. However, these assumptions are not inherent to our thinking; they are socially constructed, produced and inherited through a number of hegemonic and Eurocentric discourses on space, leading to what Edward Soja and Henri Lefebvre refer to as the “mystification” of space and spatiality. The main aim of this research is to investigate how the literary treatment of space and place shapes the representations of space, place and spatial loss in the writing of ten postcolonial Francophone authors from the Maghreb and Canada from a cross-cultural and cross-generational perspective. It asks whether these authors participate in the “demystification” (in the sense this concept is used by Edward Soja) or the unveiling of the hidden relationship between space and power contained in the Eurocentric discourse on space by creating counter-discourses and strategies that challenge dominant constructions about space, or whether they in fact reinforce this (these) discourse(s) on space despite their presumed postcoloniality. The research presented critically evaluates the concepts and theories of space and place in human geography and applies these to the study of space, place and spatial loss in the postcolonial Francophone texts selected from the viewpoint of three main literary themes (imagination, memory and the border) and the potential that these three themes offer for a “demystification of space”. It combines a range of theoretical perspectives and, simultaneously, tests a method of close reading (semiotic analysis) in the analysis of the texts selected and the literary spaces they are seen to belong to in a more systematic way than previously attempted. It sets out to examine how a semiotic reading of the (Western and non-Western) postcolonial Francophone text engages with Massey’s and Soja’s socio-political understandings and theories on space and spatiality, and what limitations and advantages can be observed through the use of these theories in combination. The research concludes that the postcolonial discourse on space and place in the texts selected is expressed through the values and strategies of ambiguity and ambivalence, not subversion as has been previously suggested. It shows that the themes of imagination, memory and the border play a significant role for the ways in which space and place are conceptualised in those texts, with the theme of the border offering the highest potential for challenging hegemonic assumptions about space. It shows that semiotics can become an effective tool in the unveiling of the values and value systems embedded in the Eurocentric discourse on space, when used in combination with other theoretical approaches. By debating the issue of the “demystification of spatiality” in the literary context, it ultimately raises the larger question of the status and relationship of literariness (or poetics) and political engagement (or politics) of the texts produced within the postcolonial Francophone context. 1 Contents Author’s Declaration ...................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements.......................................................................................... 8 Abbreviations .................................................................................................. 9 List of Tables and Diagrams ........................................................................ 10 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 11 1. Research Aim, Objectives and Methodology ......................................... 11 1.1. Research Aim .............................................................................................................. 11 1.2. Research Objectives .................................................................................................... 20 1.3. Justification of Corpus and Corpus Selection .......................................................... 24 1.4. The Application of Semiotic Analysis to the Corpus ............................................... 32 2. Research Context and Key Theoretical Perspectives ............................ 39 2.1. (Post)colonial Discourses and Theories on Space .................................................... 39 2.1.1. Conceptualisation of Space, Place and Gender: Disorienting Spaces, Disorienting Places................................................................................................................ 39 2.1.2. Thinking Globalisation Spatially? Postcolonial Practice, Globalisation and the Spatialisation of Theories on Modernity ............................................................................ 42 2.2. European Discourses and Narratives on (Spatial) Loss .......................................... 44 3. Chapter Overview ..................................................................................... 49 CHAPTER 1. LITERARY SPACES AND SPACES OF LITERATURE – POSTCOLONIAL FRANCOPHONE LITERARY SPACES AS OVERLAPPING SPACES OF RESISTANCE? ...................................... 54 1.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 55 2 1.2. The Space of Maghrebian Literatures in French: Loss and Double Marginality .................................................................................................. 59 1.3. The Space of Canadian Literature in French: Lack and Spaces of Peripherality ............................................................................................................. 66 1.4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 72 CHAPTER 2. IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHIES: SPACE AND THE IMAGINATION I ......................................................................................... 74 2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 75 2.2. Reorienting Spaces, Reorienting Places in Jacques Ferron’s L’Amélanchier .......................................................................................................... 78 2.2.1. The concept of “re-orientation” of Space: the Search for Identity as a Quest for Origin in L’Amélanchier ................................................................................................ 81 2.2.2. The Representation of Natural and Social Spaces as Spaces of the Imaginary in L’Amélanchier ....................................................................................................................... 85 2.2.2.1. Natural Spaces: the Forest as the Symbol of Rootedness, Space of the Unconscious ............................................................................................................................ 89 2.2.2.2. Urban Spaces: the Street, the Labyrinth and the psychiatric hospital of Mont-Thabor ....... 93 2.2.3. Internal vs. External Space: the Fundamental Opposition Underlying L’Amélanchier ....................................................................................................................... 95 2.3. Writing “Non-Place”: Space and Meaning in Mohammed Dib’s Les Terrasses d’Orsol ................................................................................................ 99 2.3.1. Between Presence and Absence of Meaning: The Space of Perception, Spatial Oppositions and Spatial Internalisation in Les Terrasses d’Orsol .......................................................................................................... 103 2.3.1.1. Deconstruction of the Space of Perception and the Production of Absence of Meaning ......................................................................................................... 106 2.3.1.2. The Opposition