| Summary: | From the margins of discourse, this autobiographical work disrupts the traditional
HEGEMONIC narratives of THEIR INSTITUTIONS and challenges the conventional
notions of the genre of autobiography through its form and content. It uncovers and
upsets both WESTERN and Punjabi PATRIArchal definitions of THEIR/Their CULTure:
Furthermore, it undermines linguistic norms by using a mix of English, Punjabi and
some French. Through narratives, prose, poetry, transparent language/languages my
words break the long kept silences of three Punjabi women living amidst racism,
sexism and classism in THEIR/Their SOCIety
Public and private History of THEIR/Their CULTure, fiction and fantasy are juxtaposed
through mixed genres and mixed codes, and the fragmented units are not necessarily
presented as chronologically linear. Unlike typical autobiographies, I braid together
the restrictive lives and painful experiences of my mother, my grandmother, and myself
in an attempt to show how THEIR/Their oppressive History and CULTure shape and
have shaped our life/lives, our acceptance and our resistance. In doing so I begin to
see parallels between the oppression of women and untouchables in Indian Society
and the exploitation of minority women and minorities in CANADIAN SOCIETY.
My experiment with structure and typography helps me, a semi-trilingual,
working/middle class minority woman and EDUCAtor, to construct and deconstruct my
personal self and selves in a more meaningful way. This type of meaning making
takes precedence over conventional stylistic or established structures. My identity
cannot be separated from the languages, CULTures, in which I wander endlessly or from the oppressive conditions of those whose lives have shaped and continue to
shape me. Despite the pressure, I cannot choose between these identities. As a
result I am forced to continue to negotiate between my identities and live an intricate
web of shifting power relations.
I realise that the non-contradictory self is impossible.Therefore I must go beyond and
create something new. Something that is more than the mere bringing together of
identities ~ it is something in the beyond, kithe uther ~ gahan. From my third space I
call upon minority women, white women, EDUCators, readers and writers to also go
beyond and find a THIRD Space from which to work together in order to reposition the
positions of POWER that have been placed upon us through centuries of Oppression
and EXPLOITATION.
Only by speaking out in my languages, my words, my experiences, my poet's voice,
my storying voice, my minority woman's voice, my TEACHer's voice, my fragmented
voices, will I begin to overcome the tradition of silence and continue the necessary
resistance. === Education, Faculty of === Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of === Graduate
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