La (Re)négociation Identitaire Du Subsaharien Francophone Contemporain Dans L'Écriture Romanesque De Léonora Miano, De Calixthe Beyala Et d'Alain Mabanckou

The Senegalese writer Léopold Sédar Senghor is known for being a proponent of the cultural métissage, the Civilization of the Universal, the dialogue of cultures and the concept of humanism. He notably suggests the complementarity of different cultures and of populations as a basis for any great civilization, and he emphasizes the importance of exchange and dialogue among cultures. The idea of the multi-affiliation or identity has been the feature of the work of Francophone sub-Saharan authors Léonora Miano, Calixthe Beyala, and Alain Mabanckou. This dissertation explores the (re)negotiation of the sociocultural identity of contemporary francophone sub-Saharans in the 20th and 21st centuries with a focus on the works of Miano, Beyala, and Mabanckou. Through a close reading of my corpus, I examine how these authors present one or more facets constituting the new socio-cultural identity of sub-Saharans today. This study pays a particular attention to how these authors treat and rethink the notions of métissage, borderlands/frontière, Afropea, the African female body, gender roles, and identity. By highlighting the sociocultural and sexual realities that lead Sub-Saharans characters to define themselves as culturally hybrid/métis or as socially androgynous, I analyze the three authors' treatment of the construction of their identity from a phenomenological, psychological, and sociological perspective. In my dissertation, I show how the renegotiation of sub-Saharans' identity results from social and sexual emancipation in Beyala's work; from cultural métissage in Mabanckou's work; and/or from afropeanity or cultural hybridity in Miano's work. In other words, this study shows how social norms, cultural heritage, and society shape gender roles and identity; how cultural experiences and openness to the Other affect the sub-Saharans' vision of the world and their identity today. From a sociological perspective, chapter two analyzes the idea of a social androgyny as a subversive shift in gender roles to rethink the relationship between African women and men as social groups and to deconstruct social norms and the gaze of the Other concerning the representation of the African female body through Beyala's oeuvre. Chapter three explores the impact of the western dream, "rêve occidental," and the concept of "non-return" in the case of clandestine sub-Saharan migrants. I analyze how Mabanckou treats the questions of migration, of in-betweenness, and of non-return from a psychological standpoint by highlighting how lived experiences both in African and French societies shape and affect the identity of these sub-Saharans. Chapter four examines how the idea of Afropeanity in Miano's work echoes in both Glissant's theory of the poetics of relation, Senghor's theory of the dialogue of cultures, and Mbembe's cosmopolitanism to create a space in which sub-Saharans (including the non-migrant sub-Saharan) become cultural hybrids also known as "Afropeans" by living their adopted culture and simultaneously valuing their African roots. Through Miano's work and from a phenomenological perspective, I show how they move consecutively from a space of uncomfortable in-betweenness to spaces of afropeanity and cosmopolitanism both by embracing cultural hybridity and diversity.

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