Inhabiting Spatial Fissures. Marginal Subjects and Thirdspaces

Congreso; XXth ICLA Congress PARIS Comparative Literature as a critical approach; 2013

The concept of space has undergone a significant transformation in the last decades. Its definition has expanded, to consider it not merely as a vacuum, geographical area where events take place, but rather as a complex arena of interrelated layers of meanings, in which social practices are performed and identities asserted. Thus, and following the thoughts and ideas of theorists Edward Soja, Henry Lefevre and Michel Foucault, we consider space as a social construction which is always politically contested and in which meanings are inscribed. It is in these social constructs where subjects interrelate and perform their practices, and in which the struggles for power are materialized. Our focus of analysis will ?hence- be on the construction of (alternative) spaces of resistance and subversion of the given, hegemonic social order. In our work, we set out to explore the construction of spaces of resistance in Annie Prouxl´s ?Brokeback Mountain? (1999) and Edwidge Danticat´s ?The Bridal Seamstress? and ?The Funeral Singer? (2004). We propose an in-depth analysis of the processes of construction of different hegemonic social orders represented in the stories, as well as the counter-spaces which result of these and the different strategies in relation to spatiality that the characters employ in order to subvert these given social orders. We propose the following working hypothesis: within any hegemonic society marginal subjects construct alternative sites which try to counter the impositions and restraints on their practices. These spaces are varied in terms of Firstspace, that is in their materiality, and Secondspace, that is their conception. In the works analyzed, Thirdspace is constructed in the wilderness, in enclosed, urban spaces and in the some of the characters´ perpetual nomadism, which highlights the dynamic nature of the lived space.