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1981
Volume 22, Issue 3-4
  • ISSN: 1368-2679
  • E-ISSN: 1758-9142

Abstract

Abstract

This article explores representations of fasting and feasting in (1993) and (2018) by contemporary Francophone Mauritian author, Ananda Devi, teasing out the resistant strategies of (not) eating to the power dynamics entrenched within her global, postcolonial settings in which the politics of gender, neo-colonialism and advanced capitalist consumer culture compete in the regulatory domination of the individual body. Reading these two novels together offers space for reflection on the different meanings – psychical, familial, religious, cultural, political, historical – that converge on the bodies of her protagonists, and the ways that these meanings may exceed singular or conventional interpretations of both fasting and feasting. Written 25 years apart, and set in different locations, one in Mauritius, the second in an unnamed although recognizably western nation, Devi's novels speak to one another across these spaces, tracing the global flows of attitudes towards the body and practices of consumption. In so doing, Devi's writing illuminates the embedded, crisscrossing power dynamics and layered drives exhibited by these fasting, feasting bodies, and their divergent – but resonant – strategies of resistance in the practices of (not) eating across the contemporary, globalized world.

Résumé

Cet article se penche sur les représentations du refus de manger et de la consommation excessive dans (1993) et (2018) d'Ananda Devi, écrivaine mauricienne francophone; il détermine les stratégies de résistance des actes de (ne pas) manger aux dynamiques du pouvoir ancrées dans des lieux globaux et postcoloniaux, dans lequels s'entremêlent et se battent les politiques du genre, du néo-colonialisme, et de la culture du nouveau capitalisme, pour la domination régulatrice du corps individuel. L'analyse de ces deux romans offre un espace pour réfléchir sur les significations variées – psychiques, familiales, réligieuses, culturelles, politiques, historiques – qui convergent sur les corps de ses protagonistes, et sur les manières dans lesquelles ces significations pourraient dépasser les catégories singulières et conventionelles du refus de manger et de la consommation excessive. Écrits avec vingt ans d'intervalle, l'un qui se déroule à l'île Maurice, l'autre dans une nation qui n'est pas nommée mais qui exhibe des caractéristiques d'une culture occidentale réconnaissable, les romans de Devi se parlent à travers ces lieux, traçant les flux globaux des attitudes envers le corps et les pratiques de la consommation. En faisant ainsi, l'écriture de Devi éclaire les dynamiques du pouvoir enracinées et entrecroisées et les pulsions polyvalentes manifestées par ces corps sous- et sur- alimentés, ainsi que leurs stratégies de résistance (différentes mais résonantes) dans la pratique de (ne pas) manger à travers le monde globalisé contemporain.

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2019-12-01
2026-04-22

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/content/journals/10.1386/ijfs_00001_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): Ananda; anorexia; cannibalism; Devi; fasting; hunger strike; obesity; self-cannibalism

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