Multiculturalism and Postsecular Feminism: Reframing Moroccan Female Global Identity in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s Fiction

The present article reassesses the representation of Moroccan diaspora women in Moroccan transnational narratives, reframing the global dimension of transnational identity construction. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach that borrows themes from Transnational Studies and Postsecular Feminist Studies, this critical study dismantles the conventional binary depiction of Moroccan transnational women as either culturally traditional or hybrid, and as either religiously conservative or secular. It blurs such binarism to reconcile the irreconcilable, negotiating Moroccanness and Westernization, the sacred and the secular. Consequently, the study captures the process of transnational identity reformulation as a rapprochement of dissimilar cultural and pious forces. Put simply, Moroccan female global identity promotes transnational cultural interrelations and postsecular religious engagements, which empower Moroccan female expatriates within a Western, multicultural, and secular context. To do so, I focus exclusively on two key components of this global identity: culture and religion, and approach Tahar Ben Jelloun’s works, Leaving Tangier, A Place in the Old Village, and The Happy Marriage, from the perspectives of Transnational Studies and Postsecular Feminist Studies. That being said, this critical inquiry liberates Moroccan female global identity from its Eurocentric, essentialist, Orientalist, and relativist misrepresentations to represent it as a combination of traditional Moroccan and Islamic values alongside modern secular principles. It bridges the existing gap in Moroccan diaspora studies that disregards women, marginalizes Islam, and dismisses the global dimension of Moroccan female identity.