Carr-West, Jonathan Chasey; (2002) Cultures in motion: The negotiation of identity in Francophone West African fiction. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis exannines the representation of cultural identity in francophone West African novels. The first two chapters examine the cultural alienation expressed in novels of the 1950s and 1960s and the way in which both negritude and political nationalism attempt to heal this rupture by promoting an 'authentic' African identity. The third chapter draws upon recent critical theory and upon both theoretical and practical anthropology to argue that West African cultures have always been produced through the historical interaction of diverse influences. Distinctions such as that between tradition and modernity are ultimately untenable as neither term corresponds to any discrete reality. Discourses of 'authenticity' are thus, inevitably, inadequate to describe the complex reality of contemporary culture. The remaining four chapters of the thesis comprise close readings of the following West African authors: Yambo Ouologuem, Ahmadou Kourouma, Mariama Ba, Ken Bugul, Calixthe Beyala, Sony Labou Tansi, Werewere Liking. It is demonstrated that their texts position themselves self-consciously in a culturally interstitial location. Thematically and aesthetically they amalgamate a variety of different cultural elements to produce a new culturally hybrid form. These texts thus mediate between local and global to produce progressive models of culture which operate through inclusion rather than exclusion of the 'foreign'. Although terms such as hybridity, creolization and syncretism are increasingly popular modes of analysis in contemporary literary studies, they have rarely been thoroughly applied to African literature. This thesis addresses this gap and advances the theoretical debate around these terms. It is also unique in basing this analysis both in contemporary theory, and also in the specific nature of West African cultures.

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