Construção da identidade e da alteridade em processo póscolonial: A escravidão contada à minha filha (2002), de Christiane Taubira

Abstract

The status that Literature of French expression, in particular the Guyanese one, takes place in Brazilian context is almost non-existent. There is a shortage of academic papers, translations or even literary studies. Currently, the debate on colonialism and postcolonialism in the twentieth century brings to the light ideas from experts of several countries, such as, Homi Bhabha (1949), Edward Saïd (1978; 1995) and Gayatri Spyvak (1985). Poets as Léon-Gontran Damas (1937) or Aimé Césaire (1950) and Antilles philosophers as Frantz Fanon (1952) and Édouard Glissant (1981), have reflected deeply on which world we are inserted, taking as a starting point colonial condition and slavery heritage that have marked so much both Guyana and Martinique, the French Antilles. They have interpreted such spaces and have questioned some common places and colonial narratives, approaching them considering dominions, people physical presence and their subjectivities, founding the basis for practical and theoretical studies on postcolonialism. In this context, Christiane Taubira wrote, in 2002, her book entitled L’esclavage raconté à ma fille aiming at revisiting and questioning the silent history of slave trade and slavery in Americas, Caribbean and Indian Ocean as crimes against humanity. Thus, the main purpose of this research is identifying and analyzing procedures used by the author to construct individual identity and collective otherness from Guyanese multiethnic society. For such approach, it has been used as theoretical framework studies developed by Édouard Glissant (1981; 1990; 1996; 1997; 2007) concerned to identity questions and relationships among cultures in contemporary world. Therefore, this dissertation aims, at first glance, to bring a historical clipping to contextualize the studied piece, besides introducing an information set concerned to French colonial period and its link to Guyana past time. Secondly, it will be examined identity search trajectory of black communities in Americas and France, which originate cultural movements in the first decades of the 20th century. Then, the evolution of the postcolonial theory will be investigated, particularly in Guyanese and Caribbean literature. To understand Glissant’s thought, especially Glissant (1981; 1990; 1996; 1997; 2007), it is necessary to construct a profile from Guyanese multiethnic society. In a third moment, the purpose is to develop an analytical reading from the piece L’esclavage raconté à ma fille (2002), considering its textual, structural and thematic aspects, focusing interrelations produced by the author between literature and historical events which constitute the plot, in order to break up the process of representation for blacks as antiquated, uncivilized, slighter, hated and intolerable, which colonialist literature worked out for centuries.