Abstract
This research paper explores Etel Adnan‟s poem “To be In a Time of War” through Michel de Certeau‟s strategies of everyday resistance within Hakim Bey‟s temporary autonomous zones (T.A.Z). The aim of this paper is to analyze in Adnan‟s poetry the semblances of performative domestic acts of unstructured resistance. As a female exiled in America, Adnan is doubly marginalized. Being part of Cooke‟s „Beirut Decentrist‟ group, Adnan desires to “give survival meaning”.1 In the wake of America declaring a hypocritical war on Iraq, Adnan experiences a relapse that hearkens back to her first-hand experience of the violence of the Lebanese Civil War. Arab women have been acutely aware of this “organized and random” violence, which has infiltrated their daily lives.2 Thus, Adnan opts for resistance that does not revolt against the American government, but rather indulges in subtle acts of retaliation and confrontation within her ordinary life. As Adnan cartographs and untangles the temporal and spatial chaos experienced poles apart from the actual landscape, terrorized by the unleashing of continuous war, she participates in the creation of resistance that subverts expectations. The objective is to trace the transformative, performative, yet tenuous acts of resistance, and the formation of temporary autonomous zones in Adnan‟s poetic space.

Zainab Nasim Pasha, Amna Umer Cheema. (2020) Everyday Resistance and Temporary Autonomous Zones in Etel Adnan’s “To be in a Time of War”, Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society, Volume 33 , Issue 1.
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