Family Time: The Bonds and Bondage of Transnational Francophone Kinship

Abstract

This dissertation examines cultural depictions of immigrant families that lie at the intersection of the Francophone Maghreb and France. Throughout, it conceives of a transnational/cultural family that stretches the boundaries of previous notions of kinship. Some of these families have immigrated from North Africa to Europe, others have roots in North Africa and seek to return from their time in a "host" country to the "homeland," and a third category finds itself split or divided by the Mediterranean Sea. This study reads these families using the vocabulary of bonds and bondage to conceive of relationships differently and move past previous binaries of family vs. not family, normal vs. abnormal, assimilated vs. unassimilated, etc. These ideas that can be found in more detail in the project's introduction. Chapter one examines Nina Bouraoui's La voyeuse interdite (1991) and argues maternally-enforced forms of gendered bondage are disguised as gender bonds. The novel's protagonist seeks solidarity to avoid the slippage between bond and bondage at three sites of rupture in her relationship with her mother: birth, menstruation, and marriage. Chapter two focuses on divorce and paternity in Azouz Begag's Salam Ouessant (2012). Here, the protagonist struggles to form intimate bonds with his daughters because he is impeded by his intersectional position as a North African, immigrant, masculine man and experiences with saudade. Chapter three is dedicated to an analysis of Fouad Laroui's coming-of-age story, Une année chez les Français (2010). It posits that this Bildungsroman complicates the relationship between "family" and "familiar" and concludes that the bonds the protagonist forms in his surrogate family remain inadequate, due to the bondage of his origins, despite how familiar they may feel. Chapter four takes up Leïla Sebbar's Mon cher fils (2009) and reimagines familial estrangement. Instead of portraying estrangement as the product of a "lack," the novel requires that it be understood as a force that exerts pressure on the lives of the characters. Finally, the epilogue examines previous theories of becoming, including those of Simone de Beauvoir, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and Rosi Braidotti. It ties the notion of becoming to the rest of the dissertation and asks what it means to become family.