03 - 452ºF

(Genette, 1982: 451). In this way, the palimpsest is also polyphonic,
in Bakhtin’s sense of the word, as it consists of many voices besides
that of its most recent author.
Another theorist who developed notions of intertextuality is the
Moroccan writer and literary critic, Abdelkébir Khatibi. Like his
contemporary Homi Bhabha, Khatibi is interested in the cultural
specificity of the intertext which, in his view, has been mostly
overlooked (see Dobie, 2003). Influenced by Jacques Derrida’s
philosophy of différence, Khatibi sees the text as an encounter
between specific cultural and linguistic influences which, at their
point of meeting, mingle with one another and metamorphose. This
transformative encounter creates the possibility of a pensée-autre,
or the possibility of «thinking otherwise», where static binaries are
dissolved and dialogue becomes possible. In Maghreb pluriel (1983)
he explains the concept of pensée-autre as a kind of plural thought
that originates at sites of cultural diversity like the Maghreb. This
plurality is viewed by Khatibi as a source of vitality and so to deny it
is destructive to the society in his view. According to Khatibi, another
integral element of pensée-autre is its marginal nature—as a liminal
space where the self and the other interact and transform one
another. Hence, the intertext is always unfinished and in the process
of becoming. By extolling the virtues of open and unfixed thought,
Khatibi criticizes notions of static social and textual binaries—much
like Bakhtin and Kristeva did in their respective critiques of formalism
and structuralism—while the unfinished quality of pensée-autre also
allows for diversity since identity is not formulated on mythic ideas of
the past: «If we accept the possibility of an identity that is no longer
fixed to the past, we may achieve a more just conceptualization
of identity that is in the process of becoming; that is to say that
identity is a heritage traces, words, traditions, transforming over time
which is given to us to live out, with one another» (Khatibi, 1990:
149; my translation). Calling for an acceptance of the other within,
Khatibi claims that we might finally move towards a more truthful
approach to the idea of identity. This acceptance would be based on
an understanding of our innate heterogeneity and would require a
rejection of identity constructs that rely on comparisons of self versus
other or East versus West. Residing in the gap between cultures
and languages, he argues that the Maghrebi author must constantly
destabilize meaning and deconstruct unitary ideas through the social
text.
Building on the above approaches to intertextuality, and introducing
Edouard Glissant’s (1981; 1989) contribution to debates about
hybrid identities and texts, Françoise Lionnet describes métissage
as a feminist praxis that cannot be assimilated into a fully articulated
theoretical system. According to her, métissage is a kind of bricolage,
in the sense elaborated by Claude Lévi-Strauss. However, it
«Je suis un cowboy du Far West»: A study of textual métissage in Djanet Lachmet’s autobiographical novel Le Cow-boy (1983) - Caroline Kelley
452ºF. #03 (2010) 85-101.
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