This book presents an incisive and original study that investigates the lives and stories of queer Maghrebi and Maghrebi French men who emigrated to or grew up in contemporary France. It uses the terms queer Maghrebi and queer Maghrebi French to refer to same-sex desiring men of North African origin. With richly analyzed data collected from his ethnographic fieldwork including a wide variety of recent narratives and cultural productions, Provencher provides us with a penetrating analysis of how French and Maghrebi languages, religions, and cultures construct identities of these queer subjects.
Followed by a prologue and an introduction, the volume is organized into five chapters. In the prologue, Provencher presents the ‘Sidi Jenih—Saint Genet’ episode from Taia's Le Rouge du tarbouche as an example of the themes he takes up in the following chapters. These themes include language, self-discovery, belonging in the diaspora, arrival, desire, accumulation, transfiliation, reproduction, and the future. After this, a scene-setting introduction is provided where Provencher describes his ethnographic fieldwork, pointing out that his research offers a fresh critical framework for exploring Muslim sexual minorities in relation to immigration and integration. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on the life experiences of queer Maghrebi French speakers. Chapter 1 looks at 2Fik, a French-born photographer and performance artist of Moroccan descent. The self-discovery about his ‘disidentification’ led him to migrate to francophone Canada where he uses technology and social media to produce work that he hopes will throw new light on the hypocrisy among various cultural and religious practices. Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed's writings and life story are addressed in chapter 2. As an activist, imam, scholar, and author, Zahed is able to create a dual transfiliation with both the Prophet and French discourse on universal rights.
Chapters 3 and 4 move on to examine the life stories of queer Maghrebi men in France. Chapter 3 analyzes the published letters and autofiction of queer Moroccan author and film director Abdellah Taia, showing that his ‘coming out’ or ‘arrival’ in Paris represents a series of ‘comings and goings’ between France and the Maghreb with a flexible accumulation of language and cultural legacies. Chapter 4 examines the life story and filmmaking of screenwriter and director Mehdi Ben Attia. Drawing on storytelling, technology, and the electronic image, he creates multiple facets of himself through his work.
The final chapter compares and contrasts all of the case studies of these educated, creative, and artistic individuals with those of ‘nonartistic’ and ‘noncreative’ queer Maghrebi French speakers, aiming to give a more complete picture of how linguistic, economic, and other resources shape these subjects' lives. Provencher concludes the book by maintaining that various minority groups are working together to search for a unified language of belonging in France, and they will benefit from this endeavour.
The book is useful for healthcare workers and policy-makers. It should also serve as a good reference for students, teachers, and researchers in the areas of French cultural studies, anthropology, postcolonial and diaspora studies, intercultural communication, LGBT studies, and language and sexuality.
