Memorias trans: género, orientalismo, anarquismo e islam en Isabelle Eberhardt y Leda Rafanelli

Laura Galián Hernández

doi:10.14198/pasado.27086

Authors

Laura Galián Hernández Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3769-3560

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14198/pasado.27086

Keywords:

Anarchism, Gender, Islam, Colonialism, Orientalism, Isabelle Eberhardt, Leda Rafanelli

Abstract

The aim of this article is to problematize the transnational anarchism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – studied mainly from the masculine and Western perspective – in order to prioritize a gendered and postcolonial gaze. To that end, we delve into the life and work of two European anarchist intellectuals: the Swedish Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) and the Italian Leda Rafanelli (1880-1971). Both writers travelled through various geographies of the southern Mediterranean and captured these experiences in their memoirs and writings. In their memoirs and writings they reflected their concerns about social injustice, colonialism, Islam, anarchism and gender, issues on which they sometimes took ambivalent positions. Through the reading of their memoirs and literary works, namely Diaries of a Passionate Nomad (Eberhardt 2018 [1923]), Country of Sand. Algerian stories (Eberhardt, 1989 [1914]), Memorie d’una chiromante (Rafanelli, 2010) and L’Oasi: Romanzo arabo (Rafanelli 2017), our aim is to conduct a prosoprographical and literary study to understand the intersections between anarchism, Islam, Orientalism and gender during the past century, in what we consider to be a trans journey, both in the narrative sense –where their memoirs blur the lines between fiction and autobiography– transnational –due to their travels across the Mediterranean– and in their fluid, cross-border perspective on ideological, anarchist, and libertarian positions. This also applies to their relationship with religion and gender issues, which deeply permeate both their life trajectories and literary work.

Funding

Este trabajo se ha llevado a cabo en el marco del Proyecto de investigación «Conceptos emancipadores en el Mediterráneo – Memorias, traducción y tránsito en su diacronía CONEMED» (PID2022-142438NA-I00), financiado por el programa Generación del Conocimiento de la Agencia Estatal de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.

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