Transforming Family: Queer Kinship and Migration in Contemporary Francophone Literature

The assumption of colonialism is that families should conform to a kinship arrangement built on normative, nuclear, individualism-based models. Transforming Family by Jocelyn Frelier examines a selection of novels penned by francophone authors in France, Morocco, and Algeria, which question how family relates to race, gender, class, embodiment, and intersectionality. These novels create trans-identities for their protagonists and contribute to a scholarly understanding of the becoming trans- of cultural production.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 01 October 2022
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

One of the enduring legacies of colonialism is the notion that families should adhere to kinship arrangements based on normative, nuclear, individualistic models. An alternative understanding of familial aspiration emerges across national borders and cultures, transcending the limitations of diasporas. This alternative perspective, which envisions a category of "trans-families," draws upon decolonial and queer intellectual thought to mobilize or transform power across borders.

In Transforming Family, Jocelyn Frelier delves into a collection of novels written by francophone authors in France, Morocco, and Algeria, including Azouz Begag, Nina Bouraoui, Fouad Laroui, Leïla Sebbar, Leïla Slimani, and Abdellah Taïa. Each novel offers a distinct argument about this alternative understanding of family, challenging how family intersects with race, gender, class, embodiment, and intersectionality. By asserting that trans-families are inherently queer, Frelier creates new avenues for agency for both family units and individuals seeking representation and fulfilling futures.

The novels analyzed in Transforming Family, as well as the families they portray, resist classification and detach the legacies of colonialism from contemporary modes of being. Consequently, these novels establish trans-identities for their protagonists and contribute to a scholarly understanding of the process of becoming trans- in cultural production. As international political debates surrounding migration, the family unit, and the "global migrant crisis" intensify, Frelier destabilizes governmental criteria for the "regrouping" of families by turning to a set of definitions found in the cultural production of members of the francophone, North African diaspora.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781496225092