Conference Abstracts
37. Mentak, Said; Faculty of Letters Oujda:
"The African Geographical Representation of the Postcolonial
City: Constructing Public Space with Gender Ideology"
The word "city", according to The Dictionary
of Human Geography, is originally understood as "a European
urban settlement containing a cathedral and the seat of a bishop".
First, this religious sense is ironically inverted by the geographical
knowledge of the city itself where some public places are reserved
for the expression of individual desires and fantasies. The moral
geography of the city is thus encroached upon by an atmosphere of
tolerance that allows for a sharing of public spaces–such
as streets, buses, buildings, and clubs–with different people
not necessarily belonging to the same community. That is, diversity
has generally become the distinctive trait of the city. Second,
though the criteria for identifying cities is mostly determined
by an administrative act, population size is a factor that cannot
be ignored to differentiate a village from a city. In the same way
population growth contributes to the making of a city, it also destroys
the traditional aspect of the village life which is based on stability,
security, and sense of belonging to a knowable world. The city is
then a world where strangers mingling in public spaces generate
fear and anxieties. Finally, the city is a European settlement.
In this sense, taking into account Africa which was colonized by
European countries one would support Triulzi's idea that the African
city is a "site of memory" of colonisation and a synthesis
of the colonial city which grew opposite the African native town.
It is after all a forced synthesis of modernity and tradition. Yet,
the African urban generations who are born and grown up in cities
hardly notice the synthesis; the city for such generations opens
ways for new freedoms, for possible individual achievements, and
for challenging autonomy. On the other hand, it is important to
stress the fact that the look of post-colonial city, in spite of
its apparent randomness, reflects political decisions as to what
should be visible and what should not.
The African novelist, being seriously concerned with colonial and
post-colonial issues, has given importance to the African city as
a site/sight of conflict of cultures and of resistance or submission
to European values. The African novelist is concerned here with
the urban constitution of African identities. However, he has been
recently criticised for his subjective, and hence limited, male
position. The city becomes a site of patriarchal order, sexist and
racist in its ideology. For instrance, Sango in Cyprian Ekwensi's
novel People of the City is very much careful not to marry a girl
of the city because his mother has already warned him that girls
of the city are all prostitutes! Therefore, the representation of
the post-colonial city in the African novel testifies to the close
connection between public space and gender ideologies. Such a representaion
also shows how urban geography draws on a gendering of knowledge
about cities.
For the sake of unity, I have chosen to tackle the issues discussed
above through the novels of Nigerian writers, who are mostly concerned
with Lagos. The writers I have selected for the purpose are Cyprian
Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ben Okri, and Buchi Emecheta.
The names of the novelists in question clearly show the two different
generations of African writers who differ in their conceptions of
the post-colonial city. The analysis of the selected texts is based
on the following principal issues:
The urban constitution of identities
The gendering of knowledge about the post-colonial city
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