Sexual Desire, Modesty and Womanhood: Somali Female Hybrid Subjectivities and the Gabar Xishood Leh Discourse
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Authors
Hashi, Bilan
Date
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
Somali womanhood , modesty , sexual desire , hybridity , in-between space , public culture , oral poetry
Alternative Title
Abstract
Extending work that examines Somali female identity, this thesis addresses how gendered subjectivity is articulated and performed within the Somali social imaginary vis-à-vis notions of “tradition,” modernity, colonialism, and post-colonialism. The project starts with the construction of an idealized Somali womanhood (what I refer to as gabar xishood leh, a modest girl), the affective pull and attachment of this identity formation, and the compulsion to perform it. In part, I illustrate how this gendered paradigm lays the conditions for being and belonging within the Somali collectivity. As the gabar xishood leh discourse is embedded with a particular conception of modesty, female desire and agency is bracketed outside the gabar xishood leh ideal. As such, this distancing precludes collective belonging and opens up real possibilities of unbelonging. The negotiation of modesty and female sexual desire is the focus of this project. I ask: how do women exert sexual agency, ‘voice,’ and modesty in ways that allow them to participate fully in the (various but often silenced) performances of Somali womanhood? In looking at classical Somali female poets (1899-1944 in pastoral lands of Northern Somalia) and modern Somali female poets (1969-1989 in the urban centre of Mogadishu, Somalia), I argue these poets have hybrid subjectivities that allow the expression of sexual desire thorough the subversion of normative codes of modesty. In addition to re-signified codes, specific spaces such as alternative publics, and the agentive acts of speaking through codes and performative listening, open up the different trajectories of how classical and modern Somali female poets creatively, socially, and politically participate in the Somali public sphere. Using theories of affect, hybridity, in-between space, and public culture, among others, I question how the nexus of modesty, sexual desire, and Somali femininity not only exposes lacunae in the Somali collective imagination but creates an unconventional map of Somali womanhood—a map that re-imagines gabar xishood leh in its complexity.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
Queen's University's Thesis/Dissertation Non-Exclusive License for Deposit to QSpace and Library and Archives Canada
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Queen's University's Thesis/Dissertation Non-Exclusive License for Deposit to QSpace and Library and Archives Canada
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.