Feminizing the West African diaspora in France: 1974-2005

Adamo, Elizabeth Lauren

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/113045 Copy

Description

Title

Feminizing the West African diaspora in France: 1974-2005

Author(s)

Adamo, Elizabeth Lauren

Issue Date

2021-07-15

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Chaplin, Tamara

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Chaplin, Tamara

Committee Member(s)

• Burton, Antoinette
• Barnes, Teresa
• Vergara-Reynolds, Felisa

Department of Study

History

Discipline

History

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• postcolonialism
• African Diaspora
• West Africa
• French studies
• race
• gender
• immigration
• women
• urban
• paris
• france
• senegal
• Europe
• media

Abstract

Since 1974, thousands of women have migrated from Africa to France, completely changing the dynamics of the diaspora in France. My dissertation examines their experience from 1974-2005, in order to explore what it meant to be African, black and female in France, a country where citizenship has long been premised on an abstract model that is understood as white and male and in which the French are implicitly viewed as culturally superior to their former colonial subjects. “Feminizing the African Diaspora in France 1974-2005,” explores African women’s contributions to the formation of the diaspora by investigating how they asserted their voices and pursued their goals in France during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Using previously unexplored sources from print, literature, film, TV, radio, and interviews, and focusing on women of West African heritage in France, my work constructs what might be termed an aspirational history of diasporic society and culture. While as entrepreneurs, creators and artists, these women were a minority within a minority, they were nevertheless key actors in making the African Diaspora in France visible in French culture. Whether as consumers and producers, or as the subjects of film, music, or other media, my work demonstrates how African women helped to reconfigure what it meant to be female and French, thus irradicably changing the socio-cultural makeup of both contemporary France and of urban space more broadly.

Graduation Semester

2021-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113045

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2021 Elizabeth Adamo

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