Excavating the Odalisque: Rethinking Identity in the Border in Laila Lalami’s Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits

Abstract

This study explores the treatment of the issue of El harga—present-day migration—in Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005) by the Moroccan author Laila Lalami.  More precisely, it targets the experience of women haragas as victims of essentializing gendered norms and neo-colonial dialectics through employing post-colonial poetics by Edward Said, Judith Butler, Gloria E. Anzaldua, in addition to Deleuze and Guattari. The study examines Faten’s journey of becomingness and reveals that the contemporary Western society displays neo-colonial attitudes and relegates migrant Arab women to the periphery following Orientalist visions of identity and sexuality. It argues that Faten’s story of self-affirmation, new consciousness and subversion of the odalisque affirms her ability to rehistoricize, recontextualize and demythologize the myopic renderings about Arab and Muslim women in the West. The article concludes by refuting the consideration of El harga as a mere border crossing through its representation as an ideological and cultural traverse leading to an emergent agency and consciousness.

[1]In this article, the term “El harga” or “lahrig” is a noun coming from the verb “hrag” meaning in North African dialect “to burn”. “Harag”, singular form of “haragas”, refers to clandestine immigrants who transgress the law whether by immigrating generally to Europe and burning their identity papers, or by overstaying their visa. See Hannoum. “The Harraga of Tangiers.” for insightful explanations on the issue of El harga.