The spatial paradigm analyzed in this book displays distinctive male bodies who appropriate two very different representations of Frenchness . Whereas the Latin American imaginary presents the French-inspired garçonniÚre 1 as a private space that allows for homosexual permissiveness, the North African context characterizes the terrasse de café as the public sphere, where the transcultural encounter with the French Other leads to masculine transformation through a same-sex encounter. Whether used for work or pleasure, these French spaces enable effeminate male figures to perform their queerness in complete freedom on the one hand. And on the other, Frenchness becomes the locus of meetings between local brown boys and white European travelers , whereby they negotiate new transcultural relationships between themselves and with the broader society around them. Taken together, such interpretations raise the same questions about Frenchness : Is it queer? 2 How and why would French-inspired spaces be associated with queer identity outside of the Hexagon? 3
Examining France as a nation and an imagined cultural space , this book suggests that the concept of Frenchness plays a significant role in the construction of a queer identity in both Latin America and North Africa . Rather than approach these cultures as a residual depository of European thought, colonization, and linguistic dominanceâas has often been demonstrated to prove problematic in queer theory and literary criticismâmy research takes a transcultural approach to homo/sexual identities and subjectivities. By connecting these two regions from the global South in a comparative mode, my goal is to add to the nascent discussion about bodily image, sexuality, masculinity , marginality , ethnicity, and class within the discipline of queer studies , paying particular attention to the ways in which these sociological factors are associated with France in different cultural contexts. While it has long been acknowledged that France historically considered North Africa to be a queer space permitting promiscuity , it has less often been noted that Latin America looks to France for the same purpose, or that Frenchness has likewise come to represent an imagined queer space enabling sexual explorations in North Africa today. In other words, reversing the gaze of the colonizer, both of these regions in the southern hemisphere have come to view Frenchness as queer.
The notion of Frenchness 4 plays a key role in this study of Francophone North African and Latin American literatures. Emerging research about the similarities between these geographical areas usually adapts Western theories to new contexts using a comparative approach that responds to a national identity paradigm. For instance, in Performative Bodies, Hybrid Tongues (2010), 5 Julian Vigo examines how the body serves in both of these regions as an analytical site where nationhood, gender, and sexuality merge to build an interpretation of the social. Like Vigoâs work, my project also highlights effeminate male figures, ethnicized bodies and queer subjectsâand their daily practical rethinking of the social. More specifically, I focus on homosexual cross-cultural encounters that put society members in each of these regions into direct contact with others from abroad.
In situations where queer subjects cross through transcultural spaces, they find ways to create transversal dialogues inclusive of racial, cultural, age, and sexual specificities, as well as to discover new modes of social engagement. The political terrain of daily life exposes the self-understanding queer in one way or another to the knowledge that potential stigmatization interconnects with a wide array of homogenous social ideologies pertaining to gender, family, consumption, desire, nature, culture, race, and national imaginaryâall bound to the male body . In fact, it seems safe to assert that being queer means the need to grapple, if not outright to fight, about these issues on a regular basis. Such a challenging process is often embodied in the figure of the Transcultural Queer, who occupies zones of contactâwhether for work or pleasureâthat are uniquely qualified to re-conceptualize Frenchness and French influence as they are defined in local cultures from around the globe.
Several questions therefore emerge at the core of this project: What are the social conditionings that give rise to same-sex encounters between two different cultures? To what degree may such encounters facilitate or challenge sexual agency and subject formation in postcolonial societies where Frenchness alternately represents a corruptive influence or a liberating ideal?
Orientalism and Indigenism in the Francophone Context
As a starting point, it is important to remember that contemporary North Africa and Latin America share somewhat similar historical positions in relation to Frenchness : Despite unique cultural and linguistic traits, both regions have remained in continuous contact with French culture, literature or language since the colonial era. Although Latin America âs official languages are Spanish or Portuguese, French frequently acts as a second or third language within the literate population, while North Africa âs linguistic diversity involves Arabic, Berber, and French. In addition, these regions share a history of invasion by France .
Napoleon I began French colonization in North Africa with the occupation of Egypt in 1789, which gave birth to the modern experience of the Orient as famously defined nearly two hundred years later by Edward Said . In Orientalism (1979), Said observes that the Napoleonic expedition motivated a âseries of textual children, from Chateaubriandâs ItinĂ©raire to Lamartineâs Voyage en Orient to Flaubertâs Salammboâ (88). 6 In addition to artistic and textual production, the Napoleonic expedition in North Africa also allowed Europe âto know the Orient more scientifically, to live in it with greater authority and discipline than ever beforeâ (22). In June 1830, the French Restoration government sent an expeditionary force to Algeria to capture the capital city. When Louis-Napoleon became emperor in 1851, he saw Algeria as a âspecial caseâ and its people âworthy or interestâ (2) 7 ; after his visit there in 1860, Napoleon III became âobsessed with Algeria and the Arabsâ (3), desirous to bring them âthe benefits of civilizationâ as well as âperfect equalityâ with French citizens. His interests in an Arab kingdom aimed to gain international prestige for France while ensuring posts for his armed forces in the Mediterranean. His mission civilisatrice served not only a Christian purpose or a French cultural agenda, but also commercial and military interests. Despite subsequent regime changes, the French would extend their dominion in North Africa to Tunisia and Morocco , which both remained French protectorates until 1956, when they were relinquished during the Algerian War, lasting until 1962.
Although far more briefly, French colonial expansion in Latin America reached one of its most important peaks during the same period. No more than a year after becoming enamored with North Africa, Napoleon III also sent his troops to Mexico . In 1861, Napoleon attempted to establish monarchical rule there in order to strengthen French assets in the region. Since its independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico had struggled against bankruptcy and political disorders. Jay Sexton in The Monroe Doctrine (2011) comments that rival factions destroyed âthe effectiveness of government and all respect for authority, so that brigandage and outlawry were everywhere prevalentâ during that time of turmoil (70). 8 The common belief at the time was that âthe political situation in Mexico [would] shortly end in anarchy or else give place to the establishment of a protectorate by some outside powerâ (ibid.). However, Mexicoâs political unrest was not necessarily the reason why Napoleon III intervened; instead, it was the failure of the Mexican government to meet the demands of European creditors, among which French investors were particularly alarmed due to interest payments long overdue. Sexton adds,
France , taking the lead, succeeded in bringing about a concert of the three European nations most concerned with the Mexican dilemma; and on October 31, 1861, Spain and Great Britain signed with Louis Napoleon a convention at London under the terms of which they agreed to act together, employing force if necessary, to secure satisfaction from the Mexican government. (72)
Under the terms of these economic sanctions from the European Convention, the French troops, aided by British and Spanish forces, arrived in the port city of Veracruz. By 1863, they seized the capital, Mexico City, after which Maximilian of Austria was selected âto play the role of Mexican sovereign, and in 1864 [was] proclaimed Emperor. During these years the French [were] establishing themselves in Mexico â (73). In this manner, Napoleon III sought to colonize Mexico with French settlers, to modernize its economy, and to provide political stability. All total, the Napoleonic occupation of Mexico lasted years, until Republican insurgents captured and executed Maximilian in 1867.
North Africa and Latin America thus share a long and fraught relationship with France . As Françoise Lionnet observes, the effort to understand âfrancophone studies in all its richness,â requires that critics identify and examine diverse areas of francophonie (French-speaking), which have faced various forms of colonial domination, including âsub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb , the Mashreq, the Caribbean, and the Indian Oceanâ (1253). 9 Given its French invasions in the nineteenth century, Latin America deserves its own unique place in t...