Homeward boundDomestic space, identity and political agency in maya angelou's autobiography

  1. Fernández Menicucci, Amaya
Revista:
Feminismo/s
  1. Gómez Reus, Teresa (coord.)

ISSN: 1696-8166 1989-9998

Año de publicación: 2005

Título del ejemplar: Habitar, escribir, conquistar el espacio

Número: 5

Páginas: 133-155

Tipo: Artículo

DOI: 10.14198/FEM.2005.5.09 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openRUA editor

Otras publicaciones en: Feminismo/s

Resumen

This article aims at exploring the representation of domestic space in Maya Angelou's six-volume autobiography. It will attempt to prove the existence of a direct relationship between the narrator's appropriations and negotiations of domestic space, and the ongoing definition of both her individual and collective identity. We shall argue that the construction of domestic spaces along the texts is not based on the traditional (and simplistic) opposition between public and private space. Rather, and considering the narrator's nomadic experience and her active participation in the redefinition of Afro-American identity and political visibility, her configuration of domestic space evolves incessantly and performs, at least, three fundamental functions: it is a site of self-assertion, belongingness to a collective identity, and political agency.

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