Representation of Migrant Women in the Works of Arab Canadian Writers Nadia Ghalem, Abla Farhoud, and Nadine Ltaif

Abstract

The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen a growing number of people migrating for economic, political, and cultural reasons to developed countries. Women have been a part of global migration movements for over four centuries and the number of female immigrants gradually rose during the 20th century. The changing face of migration has drawn the attention of migration experts to the significance of female migration and the necessity of conducting more gender-targeted work on the subject. This doctoral thesis examines the representation of migrant women in the selected literary works of three Arab Canadian women writers, Nadia Ghalem, Abla Farhoud, and Nadine Ltaif. By using a combined framework of intersectional and materialist feminist approaches, I examine how factors including race, gender, class, religion, and sexuality are involved in the experiences of female characters exposed to discrimination or oppression. I also focus on these characters’ relationship to modes of production, the social classes they belong to, as well as the patriarchal and gendered social structures, practices, and relations they are subjected to, and analyze how these elements inform the different positionalities they occupy in the family, society, and state. The findings illustrate that the fictional figures experience migration and exile as doubly and triply marginalized subjects, and patterns of female existence in society are highly informed by their relationship to patriarchal and gendered social structures and cultural norms of their native country. All the protagonists go through a transformation and being all directly exposed to at least two cultures at a relatively young age, they can make a cognizant choice for their lives more easily than their elders. Most of the protagonists choose the life they want for themselves; namely, they succeed in reclaiming their lives and can flourish.