| dc.description.abstract | The notion of self comprises physical, affective, and psychological aspects
within it. Each and every occurrence in a person’s life has an impact on self. On the
contrary, the self affected in that way facilitates a person to alter, modify or add to the
existing thought patterns as well as actions. Thus, a person’s self is profoundly
amended by her/his space and experiences in a social system. Society or culture seems
to fix a person in a predetermined framework beyond which she/he can’t act for any
cause and the fixed mould acts as a stumbling stone to the self. The preset framework
is constituted by a strong blend of gender, race and power with which each person is
forced to be related in a social system. Self has a major role in fixative positioning of
one in a social/cultural system. It is the self which determines whether to conform to
predetermined class, race, and gender rules or to perform beyond them.
Race and ethnicity act as a crucial component in the formation of self. They
have a deep impact on the self by affecting people’s feeling of belonging to a specific
culture or social group. In the case of people who are being treated in a discriminatory
or unjust way, it casts a detrimental effect on their sense of self. As a result, their
actions and thought patterns will be in line with the commonly accepted racial modes.
But it requires a special vigor from the minority group to overthrow the detrimental
effect of the age-old discrimination and channelize their actions in accordance with
one’s own will. Thus, an inviolable self is formed.
The resolute Afro-American activists Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, and Maya
Angelou never allow the discriminations in name of gender and race to halt the self.
Instead, they come out of all the racial and gendered ambits through their might.
Society, which always forces people to behave in tune with the preset patterns,
considers this subverted performance as dangerous for their existence. But nothing
holds these strong women back from their journey of self-exploration. The aim of this
study is to expose the revolutionary self and life of these Afro-American woman
activists in the historical background of the U.S. implicit racism. And to put into light
the Afro-American woman activists who were/are not much discussed because of their
interrogative approach and transgressing actions against white supremacy. These
Afro-American women activists stand as a symbol of resistance to strive and be
triumphant in making their space in society. The life narratives selected for the study
are Assata: An Autobiography (1987), Angela Davis: An autobiography (1974), the
autobiography series of Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969),
Singin’ and Getting’ Merry Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981), All
God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes (1986), A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002),
Mom and Me and Mom (2013).
The thesis comprises six chapters. The first chapter of the thesis focuses on
the conceptions of resistance. The variant dimensions of ‘representation’ has been
discussed. The second chapter Life Narratives: “Reflecting and Reviewing Lives”
centers on the way in which life of the author gets explored through life narratives like
autobiography. The third chapter “Devising Self out of Resistance: From Subsistence
to Selfhood” explores the development of black women self as they explore different
vistas of struggle and subjugation. It deals with the different aspects of self. The
development of self in a person has analyzed in the light of theories of psychology-
Gender Schema Theory, Social Learning Theory by Albert Bandura- Self-efficacy. It
focuses on the way the concept of self and self-exploration is getting revealed and
realized through the genre of autobiography. Self as a by- product of intersections of
race, class and gender is scrutinized in this chapter. The fourth chapter “Redefining
Realness: A Re-presentation of Racist Consciousness” studies race as a decisive factor
in forming a person’s psyche and thus its effect on the selfhood. Critical Race Theory
(CRT) Erik. H. Erikson’s psychological theory of identity and the role of familial or
other personal relationships as a strong backbone for subverting commonplace notions
and actions on the basis of race is being depicted. The chapter moves through theories
of representation. It focuses on representation of gender and racial representation. The
Afro-American women activists had to resist all the societal and cultural forces which
tried to subjugate them in the name of race and gender, and finally conjured up to
‘represent’ the value of self in struggling against adverse life situations.
The fifth chapter entitled “Beyond Performativity: Space and Performance
Bridge the Conceptual Divide” details how the transgressed gender roles make these
activists’ life at risk and the negative image society and media cast upon them. The
conception of binary oppositions in connection with gender roles always put forward a
boundary for one’s actions in a social structure which extends its foundation in
compartmentalization. Society put forth a normative structure of gender role by means
of repeated compliance to social/cultural norms on gender performance and thus
‘naturalizing’ them. In contrast to the commonplace predetermined gender dynamics,
these activist women found it functional to subvert the gender boundaries in
‘performing’ their identity.
The concluding chapter explains the unique success of these Afro-American
activists in their search of self. It voices forth the unstated aspiration of woman and
shares in common a note of braveness and perseverance to assert their self and thus
establish their valor even in unpropitious situations. It depicts the metamorphosis of a
Afro-American woman self to activist self which results in changing status quo as well
as gaining individual identity among the other Black women. How the Black women
activism has been overlooked by most historians though their activism begins simply
from refusal to adjust to the systems of race and patriarchy prevalent in the U.S. then,
forms the core of this chapter. | en_US |
