Islanded Identities

Constructions of Postcolonial Cultural Insularity
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-90-420-3406-8
Verlag: Brill | Rodopi

Buch, Englisch, Band 139, 243 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 572 g

Reihe: Cross/Cultures

The island, because of its supposed isolation, and its apparent small scale, has historically been a privileged site of colonial aggression and acquisitiveness. Yet the island has also been imagined as a uniquely sovereign space, and thus one in which the colonial enterprise can be seen as especially egregious. ‘Islandedness’ takes on a particular charge in the early twenty-first century, in the supposedly postcolonial period. While contemporary media offer a simulacrum of proximity to others, the reality is that we are ever more distant, inhabiting islands both real and conceptual. Meanwhile migrants from today’s ‘postcolonial’ islands are routinely denied access to the perceived ‘mainland’. And, in islands freed from overt colonialism, but often beset by neocolonial forces of domination and control, identities are constructed so as to differentiate insider from outsider – even when the outsider comes from within.
This is the first volume devoted explicitly to the postcolonial island, conceived in a broad geographical, historical, and metaphorical sense. Branching across disciplinary parameters (literary studies, anthropology, history, cultural studies), and analyzing a range of cultural forms (literature, dance, print journalism, and television), the volume attempts to focus critically on three areas: the current realities of formerly colonized island nations; the phenomenon of ‘foreign’ communities living within a dominant host community; and the existence of (local) practices and theoretical perspectives that complement, but are often critical of, prevailing theories of the postcolonial. The islands treated in the volume include Ireland, Montserrat, Martinique, Mauritius, and East Timor, and the collection includes more broadly conceived historical and theoretical essays. The volume should be required reading for scholars working in postcolonial studies, in island studies, and for those working in and across a range of disciplines (literature, cultural studies, anthropology).

Contributors: Ralph Crane, Matthew Boyd Goldie, Lyn Innes, Maeve McCusker, Paulo de Medeiros, Burkhard Schnepel, Cornelia Schnepel, Jonathan Skinner, Anthony Soares, Ritu Tyagi, Mark Wehrly

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

McCusker, Maeve

Soares, Anthony

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Introduction
Matthew Boyd Goldie: Island Theory — The Antipodes
Maeve McCusker: Writing Against the Tide? — Patrick Chamoiseau’s (Is)land Imaginary
Jonathan Skinner: A Distinctive Disaster Literature — Montserrat Island Poetry under Pressure
Ritu Tyagi: Rethinking Identity and Belonging — ‘Mauritianness’ in the Work of Ananda Devi
Burkhard Schnepel and Cornelia Schnepel: From Slave to Tourist Entertainer — Performative Negotiations of Identity and Difference in Mauritius
Ralph Crane: “Amid the Alien Corn” — British India as Human Island
Mark Wehrly: Journalism and Identity — The Red-Top Hangover and Erosions of ‘Island Mentality’ in Postcolonial Ireland
Anthony Soares: Western Blood in an Eastern Island — Affective Identities in Timor-Leste
Lyn Innes: “No Man is an Island” — National Literary Canons, Writers, and Readers
Paulo de Medeiros: Impure Islands — Europe and a Post-Imperial Polity
Notes on Contributors
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Maeve McCusker is a Senior Lecturer in French Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. She has published widely on Caribbean writing in French, notably on contemporary fiction and autobiography. Anthony Soares is a Lecturer in Portuguese Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. His chief research interests focus on postcolonial theory and literature in relation to the Portuguese-speaking world.