Literature of the 'Coupeuse': Spatialising in Torabully's 'Coupeuses D'Azur’

This paper analyses the contributions that Mauritian female indentureship has on literature of the female indentured. In Mauritian literature, views of indenturedship are often a topic for discussion towards postcolonial literature, which is about “dislocation” (Nair, 2013) that is displacement from emigration. With a close focus on contemporary 2010s Mauritian literature of Khal Torabully’s Coupeuses D’Azur (2014), this paper focuses on the female indentured dislocation. Analysis of the female indentured dislocation is organized through the field and the body of the Coupeuse (that is female cane-cutter) in Coupeuses D’Azur. This paper aims to analyse the female indentured from the theoretical lenses of space. In this correspondence I shall draw from Gerhard Van den Heever’s (2017) spatialising practices to tease out the dislocation of the female indentured labourer as it happens in Coupeuses D’Azur. Using an interpretive qualitative stance, this paper presents Coupeuses D’Azur from the perspectives of the Coupeuse prior to and post migration events iterated as her body reacts with her space in the field. Therefore, this paper concludes that the body engagement of the Coupeuse is receptive to space signification on interpretation of her space in the field.