Semester of Graduation
Fall 2025
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
French Studies
Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
This thesis examines how intersecting systems of oppression, including gender, race, class, culture, and colonial legacy, shape women’s experiences of marginalization and resistance in Francophone literature. Through a comparative analysis of Maryse Condé’s Victoire: Les saveurs et les mots, Ananda Devi’s Ève de ses décombres, and Djaili Amadou Amal’s Les Impatientes, the study explores how geography and historical context influence both the manifestation of marginalization and the fragility of female agency. In comparing these texts, which are set in three distinct Francophone regions, namely Guadeloupe, Mauritius, and Cameroon, the research highlights how location plays a crucial role in shaping the specific forms of marginalization and resistance depicted in each narrative. Bringing Kimberlé Crenshaw’s framework of intersectionality into dialogue with feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial thought as well as the literary texts themselves, the research argues that intersectionality provides the foundational lens through which overlapping structures of domination become visible, and that this foundation allows the analysis to identify additional dimensions of identity shaped by colonial, postcolonial, and transnational contexts that extend beyond its original formulation. The analysis demonstrates that women in these novels are not only constrained by gender, race, and class but also by geographical and cultural conditions rooted in colonial histories. Consequently, this thesis proposes a multidimensional framework attentive to geography, culture, and colonial histories and legacies; one that offers a more comprehensive understanding of female marginalization and resistance across Francophone geographies, while underscoring that women’s resistance alone is insufficient unless the violent and oppressive structures themselves are dismantled.
Date
11-3-2025
Recommended Citation
Akogun, Avril Rukayat Oriyomy, "INTERSECTIONALITY AND GEOGRAPHICAL DIVERSITY IN DIALOGUE WITH WORKS BY MARYSE CONDÉ, ANANDA DEVI AND DJAILI AMADOU AMAL" (2025). LSU Master's Theses. 6260.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/6260
Committee Chair
Dr. Adelaide Russo
Included in
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons