Configuring 'Maasainess' : contested textual embodiments

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis I seek to trace the figure of the Maasai as a fossilized (visual) image circulated in local and global imaginaries since the nineteenth century by Britishexplorers, missionaries and administrators. This image of either the male warrior or wounded woman continues to be reproduced in literary and cultural productions fromEast Africa, America and Europe. My study explores the notion of 'Maasainess' as a cultural identity being claimed, appropriated, redefined and performed in variousgenres by non-Maasai and Maasai authors and musicians. I am particularly interested in exploring how this construct circulates in contemporary texts and performances that also contest and transform it in response to the Maasais' negotiation of theircultural identity due to land grabbing in the name of environmental sustainability and the impact of globalization and contact with other cultures, notably through the touristindustry and urbanisation. Following the introductory chapter in which the historical and theoretical framing of the thesis is established, I discuss four autobiographically inflected novels by the prolific Maasai male writer Henry Ole Kulet as a basis for my further exploration of the portrayal of 'Maasainess'. This is followed by the third chapter in which four autobiographies by two male Maasai writers and two female non-Maasai writers, one from Switzerland and the other from the United States, are examined in relation to the notion of cultural appropriation. The fourth chapter looks at two historically inflected novels by the former British settler in Tanzania, David Read and the Australian UN expatriate in Kenya, Frank Coates, who both claim an affiliation with the Maasai as the basis for their fictions, in order to engage the history of settler colonialism. The fifth chapter shifts the focus to contemporary popular cultural performances of 'Maasainess' by analysing three songs by a non-Maasai duo, Shengena Gospel Panorama, and two Maasai musicians, Abel Motika and Lekishon Ole Kamwaro. The thesis therefore attempts a multi-genre approach to reading textsin which the figure of the Maasai is configured within a range of contexts. In this, I am primarily guided by Rosi Braidotti's concept of 'nomadic embodiment and Mary Louise Pratt's notion of the 'contact zones as facilitating change and challenging the fixity of stereotype. My argument is that 'Maasainess' is a shifting cultural signifier at porous contact zones where cultural exchanges continuously occur. Therefore, this figure renders itself available to various appropriations, reconfigurations and contestations.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University