Feminizing the Nation: A Re-reading of Selected Cases of Palestinian Female Self-Referential Texts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.1112.18052Keywords:
Arab woman narrative, Palestinian female autobiography, Constructions of identity in exile, Citizenship between nationalist and gendered imperatives, Spatial self-representation, Fadwa Tuqan, Hala Sakakini, Ghada Karmi, Hanan ’AshrawiAbstract
The point of departure in this study is the premise that conceptualization of nation begins at the level of self and consciousness; that nation acquires its shape in personal experience before it is projected onto the public. For Arab nations, the 'imagined community' is constructed from foundational elements of history, language, place, heritage, oral traditions, collective memory, indigenous practices, cultural values etc … Predominantly, it is the male intellectual elite that the hegemonic national narrative empowers to define constituent components of national imaginary, thereby eclipsing female narratives. Given that signifiers of nationhood comprise a fluid field of meaning that can be reinvented/ reimagined, endeavors of female writers in narrating the nation re-cast them according to their vision of subject/identity formation. Selected Palestinian female autobiographies reveal interventions disrupting national forms of patriarchal domination. By re-appropriating components of nationhood, they formulate 'an Arab woman national narrative' integrating women as active agents in mainstream discourses. Deliberations explore relevant issues in Arab female autobiography, inquire into ambivalent relationship between Arab women and communal national imaginary, and examine processes of recovering Palestinian female historical memory in articulations of nationhood. Texts are deliberately selected for their apt representation of junctures of the national crisis. The methodology and research data draw upon cultural models within colonial/postcolonial discourses, critical postulations on nation and nationalism, theories in autobiography, and feminist standpoint theory. Particularly noteworthy in the textual analysis are theoretical considerations regarding the ‘woman question’ in the context of Palestinian reality.
References
. Abdo, Nahla, Nationalism and Feminism: Palestinian Women and the Intifada - No Going Back. Gender and National Identity: Women and Politics in Muslim Societies, editor Valentine Moghadam, Zed Books, 1994, pp. 149-170.
. Abouelnaga, Shereen, Mafhūm al-waṭan fī fikr al-kātibah al-ʻArabīyah (The conceptualization of nation in the thought of the Arab Woman). Markaz Dirasat al-Wahdah al-Arabiyah, 2003.
. Abu Ghazaleh, Ilham, Women in the Poetry of the Intifada. Al Katib, june 1989. 110: pp. 65-76.
. Afshar, Haleh, Introduction. Women and Politics in the Third World. Editor Haleh Afshar, Routledge, 1992, pp. 1-6.
. Ahmed, Leila, Early Feminist Movements in the Middle East: Turkey and Egypt. Muslim Women. Editor Freda Hussain, Croom Helm, 1984, pp. 111-123.
. Ajbabdi, Latifa, al qadiyya al nisa'iyya fi al maghreb al Mar'a al arabiyya fi muwajahat al 'asr (the woman question in Morocco, the Arab woman in contemporary times). Conference Papers, Nour Dar al Mar'a al 'Arabiyya Lelnashr, 1996, pp. 96-105.
. Allen, Paula Gunn, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Beacon Press, c1986.
--- Foreword. Gossips, Gorgons & Crones: The Fates of the Earth. Bear & Co. Pub., 1993, pp. xiii-xx.
. Anderson, Benedict, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, South Asia and the World. Verso, 1998.
. Antonius, Soraya, Fighting on Two Fronts: Conversations with Palestinian Women. Third World-Second Sex: Women's Struggles and National Liberation, Third World Women Speak Out. Editor Miranda Davis, Zed, 1983.
. 'Ashour, Radwa, Creativity and Liberation: The Case of the Arab Women Writers. Essays in Honor of Louis Morcos. Editor Mary Massoud, Dar al Kotoub, 1998, pp. 93-106.
. 'Ashrawi, Hanan, This Side of Peace: A Personal Account. Simon & Schuster, 1995.
. Badr, Liyānah, A Compass for the Sunflower. Translated by Catherine Cobham, The Women's Press, 1989.
. Bachelard, Gaston, The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas, Beacon Press, 1969.
. Bambara, Toni Cade, "On the Issue of Roles." The Scattered Sopranos, Livingston College Black Woman's Seminar, 1969.
---. Editor, The Black Woman: An Anthology. Signet, 1970.
. Baron, Beth, Egypt as Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics. University of California Press, 2005.
. al Bazz, Shahida, Al haraka al nisa'iyya fi misr. al Mar'a al arabiyya fi muwajahat al 'asr: Conference Papers, Cairo: Nour Dar al Mar'a al 'Arabiyya Lelnashr, 1996, pp. 107-120.
. Bhabha, Homi, The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
---. DissemiNation, Nation and Narration. Routledge 1990
---. Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of Ambivalence and Authority under a Tree outside Delhi, May 1817. Critical Inquiry, Autumn, 1985. 12(1): pp. 144 -165. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343466
. Bouatta, Cherifa, Feminine Militancy: Moudjahidates during and after the Algerian War. Gender and National Identity: Women and Politics in Muslim Societies, editor Valentine M. Moghadam, Zed Books, 1994, pp. 18-39.
. Bruss, Elizabeth, Autobiographical Acts: The Changing Situation of a Literary Genre. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1976.
. Chatterjee, Partha, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
. Cooke, Miriam, Women and the War Story. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
. Dajani, Souad, Between National and Social Liberation: The Palestinian Women's Movement in the Israeli Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Women and the Israeli Occupation: Politics of Change, editor Tamar Mayer, New York: Routledge, 1994, pp. 33-61.
. Davis, Rochelle, The Growth of the Western Communities, 1917-1948. Jerusalem 1948: The Arab Neighborhoods and their Fate in the War, editor Salim Tamari, Jerusalem: Institute of Jerusalem Studies and Badil Resource Center, 1999.
. Daweesha, Adeed, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. What is Philosophy? Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
. Enderwitz, Susanne, "Palestinian Autobiographies: A Source for Women's History?" In Writing the Feminine: Women in Arab Sources, editors Manuela Marin et al., London: I. B. Tauris, 2002, pp. 49-72.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington, New York: Grove Press, 1963.
. Felski, Rita, Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.
. Fleischman, Ellen, The Nation and Its "New" Women: The Palestinian Women's Movement, 1920-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
. Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, "My Statue, My Self: Autobiographical Writings of Afro-American Women." In The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women's Autobiographical Writings, editor Shari Benstock, Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988, pp. 62-89.
. Franco, Jean, Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
. Gershoni, Israel, and James Jankowski, "Print Culture, Social Change and the Process of Redefining Imagined Communities in Egypt." International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, Feb. 1989.
. Giroux, Henry, Disturbing Pleasures: Learning Popular Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994.
. Golley, Nawar, Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies, Shahrazad Tells Her Story. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
. Gunn, Janet Varner, A Politics of Experience: Leila Khaled's My People Shall Live: The Autobiography of a Revolutionary. De-colonizing the Subject: The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography, editors Sidonie Smith et al., Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1992, pp. 65-80.
. Haddad, Yvonne, Palestinian Women: Patterns of Legitimation and Domination. Sociology of the Palestinians, editors Khalil Nakhla et al., 1980, pp. 147-175.
. Hafez, Sabry, Women's Narrative in Modern Arabic Literature: A Typology. Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, editors Roger Allen et al., Saqi Books, 1995, pp. 154-174.
. Haim, Sylvia ed., Arab Nationalism: An Anthology. University of California Press, 1962.
. Halbwachs, Maurice, On Collective Memory. Harper and Row, 1980.
. Hammami, Rema, From Immodesty to Collaboration: Hamas, the Women's Movement, and National Identity in the Intifada. Political Islam: Essays from the Middle East Report, editor Joel Beinin et al., University of California Press, 1997, pp. 194-210.
. Harlow, Barbara, Resistance Literature. Methuen, 1987.
---. Barred: Women, Writing and Political Detention. Wesleyan University Press, 1992.
---. Partitions and Precedents: Sahar Khalifeh and Palestinian Political Geography. Intersections: Gender, Nation and Community in Arab Women's Novels, editors Lisa Suhair Majaj, et al., Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 113-131.
. Hiltermann, Joost, Before the Uprising: the Organization of Palestinian Workers and Women in the Israeli Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Santa Cruz, 1988.
. Hooks, Bell, Writing Autobiography. Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader, editors Sidonie Smith et al., University of Wisconsin Press, 1998, pp. 429-432.
. Jad, Islah, Claiming Feminism, Claiming Nationalism: Women's Activism in the Occupied Territories. Women's Movements in Global Perspective, editor Amrita Basu, Westview Press Inc., 1995, pp. 226-248.
---, et al., Transit Citizens: Gender and Citizenship under the Palestinian Authority. Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East, editor Suad Joseph, Syracuse University Press, 2000, pp. 137-157.
. Jameson, Frederic, Cognitive Mapping. Marxism and The Interpretation of Culture, editors Cary Nelson et al., University of Illinois Press, 1988, pp. 347-357.
. Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, Introduction. Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature, editor Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Columbia University Press, 1992, pp. 1-80.
. Joseph, Suad, Elite Strategies for State Building: Women, Family, Religion and State in Iraq and Lebanon. Women, Islam and the State, editor Denis Kandiyoti, Macmillan, 1991, pp. 176-200.
---. Intimate Selving in Arab Families: Gender, Self, and Identity. Syracuse University Press, 1999.
. Kandiyoti, Denis, Identity and Its Discontents: Women and the Nation. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, editors Patrick Williams et al., Columbia University Press, 1994, pp. 376-391.
. Kaplan, Caren, Resisting Autobiography: Outlaw Genres and Transnational Feminist Subjects. De/Colonizing the Subject: The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography, editors Sidonie Smith et al., University of Minnesota Press, 1992, pp. 115-138.
. Karmi, Ghada, In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story. Verso, 2002.
. Kawar, Amal, National Mobilization, War Consciousness. Arab Studies Quarterly, Spring 1993. 15(2): pp. 53-67.
. Kazi, Hamida, Palestinian Women and the National Liberation Movement: A Social Perspective. Women in the Middle East, Khamsin, Zed Books Ltd., 1987, pp. 26-39.
. Kermode, Frank, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. Oxford University Press, 2000.
. Khalidi, Rashid, et al. eds., The Origins of Arab Nationalism. Columbia University Press, 1991.
---. Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. Columbia University Press, 1997.
. Khalifeh, Ijlal, al Mar'a wa qadiyyat falasteen (women and the Palestinian question). al Matba'a al 'Arabiyya al Hadeetha, 1974.
. Khalifeh, Sahar, My Life, Myself and the World. al Jadid, 2002. 8 (39): 2002, p. 11.
. Khalili, Ghazi, al Mar'a al falastiniya wa al thawra (The Palestinian woman and the revolution). Markaz al 'Abhath Munazamat al Tahreer al Falastiniya, 1977.
. Kuttab, Eileen S, al Haraka al nisa'iyya fi falasteen: tawajuhat wa tahadiyyat mustaqbaliyya (the Palestinian women's movement: directions and future challenges). al Mar'a al arabiyya fi muwajahat al 'asr: Conference Papers, Nour Dar al Mar'a al 'Arabiyya Lelnashr, 1996, pp. 139-149.
. Lionnet, Francoise, Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, and Self-Portraiture. Cornell University Press, 1989.
. Makdisi, Jean Said, Teta, Mother and Me: An Arab Woman's Memoir. London: Saqi, 2005.
. Mason, Mary, The Other Voice: Autobiographies of Women Writers. Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, editor James Olney, Princeton University Press, 1980, pp. 207-235.
. Milani, Farzaneh, Veiled Voices: Women's Autobiographies in Iran. Women's Autobiographies in Contemporary Iran, editor Afsaneh Najmabadi, Harvard University Press, 1990, pp. 1-16.
. Misch, George, A History of Autobiography in Antiquity. Westport, 1949.
. Muzaffar, Nada, al Mara'a tuqhiru mu'askarat aushfitz al sihyuniya (Women defeat the Zionist concentration camps). Sawt al Mara'a, 1987 (7): 1987.
. Najjar, Orayb Aref, Between Nationalism and Feminism: The Palestinian Answer. Women Transforming Politics, editor Jill Bystydzienski, Indiana University Press, 1992, pp. 142-161.
. Al Nowaihi, Magda, Resisting Silence in Arab Women's Autobiographies. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 20001. (33): pp. 477-502.
. Parmenter, Barbara McKean, Giving Voice to Stones: Place and Identity in Palestinian Literature. University of Texas Press, 1994.
. Peteet, Julie M, No Going Back: Women and the Palestinian Movement. Middle East Report, Jan.-Feb. 1986: p. 11.
. Perkins, Margo, Autobiography as Activism: Three Black Women of the Sixties. University Press of Mississippi, 2000.
. Popular Memory Group. Popular Memory: Theory, Politics, Method. Making Histories: Studies in History, Writing and Politics, editors Richard Johnson et al., University of Minnesota Press, 1982, pp. 205-252.
. Reagon, Bernice Johnson, My Black Mothers and Sisters or On Beginning a Cultural Autobiography. Feminist Studies, Spring 1982. 8: pp. 81-95.
. Rowbotham, Sheila, Woman's Consciousness, Man's World. Penguin Books, 1973.
. Al Sa'adawi, Nawal, A Strategy for the Creation of a Political Movement for Women the Arab World. Contemporary Arab Thought and Women: 2nd International Conference, 3-5 Nov. 1988, Cairo. Arab Women Solidarity Association, 1990, pp. 13-50.
. Sabbagh, Suha, Palestinian Women Writers and the Intifada. Social Text, Spring1989. 22: pp. 62-78.
---. Introduction. Palestinian Women of Gaza and the West Bank, editor Suha Sabbagh, Indiana University Press, 1998, pp. 1-38.
. Elsadda, Hoda, Gender and Nation in Arab Literary Narratives. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2007. 3(2): pp. 31-55.
. Said, Edward, The Mind of Winter: Reflection on Life in Exile. Harper's Magazine, Sept.1984, pp. 49-55.
---. Reflections on Exile. Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture, editors Russell Ferguson et al., New Museum of Contemporary Cultures, 1990, pp. 357-66.
---. The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination 1969-1994. Vintage, 1995.
. Sakakini, Hala, Jerusalem and I: A Personal Record. The Economic Press Co., 1990.
. Saldivar, Ramon, Chicano Narrative: The Dialectic of Difference. University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
. Saliba, Therese, A Country Beyond Reach: Liyanah Badr's Writings of the Palestinian Diaspora. Intersections: Gender, Nation, and Community in Arab Women's Novels, editors Lisa Suhair Majaj, et al, Syracure University Press, 2002, pp. 134-161.
. Sayigh, Rosemary, The Mukhabarat State: Testimony of a Palestinian Woman Prisoner. Race and Class, 1984.26(4): pp. 7-15.
---, Between Two Fires: Palestinian Women in Lebanon. Caught up in Conflict: Women's Response to Political Strife, editors Rosemary Ridd et al., Macmillan Education, 1986, pp. 106-137.
---, Palestinian Women and Politics in Lebanon. Arab Women: Old boundaries, New Frontiers, editor Judith Tucker, Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 175-192.
---, Too Many Enemies: The Palestinian Experience in Lebanon. Zed Books, 1994.
. Seyhan, Azade, Writing Outside the Nation. Princeton University Press, 2001.
. Shaaban, Bouthaina, Both Right and Left Handed: Arab Women Talk About their Lives. Indiana University Press, 1991.
. Smith, Sidonie, Autobiographical Manifestos. Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader, editors Sidonie Smith et al., University of Wisconsin Press, 1998, pp. 433-440.
---, A Poetics of Women's Autobiography: Marginality and the Fictions of Self-Representation. Indiana University Press, 1987.
. Strum, Phillipa, The Women are Marching: The Second Sex and the Palestinian Revolution. Lawrence Hill Books, 1992
. Swedenburg, Ted. Memories of Revolt: the 1936-1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. University of Minnesota Press, 1995.
. Talhami, Ghada, History of Palestinian Women's Struggle. Al Fajr, 1985. 8 Mar: pp. 8-9.
. Ṭarabishi, Jurj, Ramziyat al-marʼah fi al-riwayah al-ʻArabiyah wa-dirasat ukhra (Woman as symbol in the Arab novel). Dar al-Ṭali’ah, 1981.
. Tawil, Raymonda Hawa, My Home, My Prison. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1980.
. Thornhill, Teresa, Making Women Talk: The Interrogation of Palestinian Women Security Detainees by the Israeli General Security Services. Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, 1992.
. Ṭuqan, Fadwa, A Mountainous Journey: an Autobiography. Graywolf Press, 1990.
. Tzoreff, Mira, Fadwa Tuqan's Autobiography: Restructuring a Personal History into the Palestinian National Narrative. Discourse on Gender/gendered Discourse in the Middle East, ed. Boaz Shoshan, Praeger, 2000, pp. 57-77.
. Warnock, Kitty, Land before Honour: Palestinian Women in the Occupied Territories. Macmillan, 1990.
. Watts, Jane, Black Writers from South Africa: Towards a Discourse of Liberation. Palgrave Macmillan Limited, 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20244-7.
. Yuval-Davis, Nira, Gender and Nation. SAGE, 1997.
. Zayyat, Laṭifah, On Political Commitment and Feminist Writing. The View from Within: Writers and Critics on Contemporary Arabic Literature, editors Ghazoul et al., American University in Cairo Press, 1994, pp. 248-260.
---. The Search: Personal Papers, Quartet Books, 1996.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Samia Kholoussi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
