Islanded Identities.

Beschreibung

The island, because of its supposed isola¬tion, and its apparent small scale, has his¬torically been a privileged site of colonial aggression and acquisitiveness. Yet the island has also been imagined as a uni¬quely 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 to¬day’s ‘postcolonial’ islands are routinely denied access to the perceived ‘main¬land’. And, in islands freed from overt colonialism, but often beset by neocolo¬nial forces of domination and control, identities are constructed so as to diffe¬rentiate insider from outsider – even when the outsider comes from within. This is the first volume devoted ex¬plicitly to the postcolonial island, con¬ceived 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 real¬ities of formerly colonized island nations; the phenomenon of ‘for¬eign’ commu¬nities living within a domi¬nant host com¬munity; and the existence of (local) prac¬tices and theoretical per¬spectives that complement, but are often critical of, pre¬vailing theories of the post-colonial. The islands treated in the volume include Ireland, Montserrat, Mar¬tinique, Mauri¬tius, and East Timor, and the collection includes more broadly conceived histori¬cal and theo¬retical essays. The volume should be re-quired 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 Maeve McCusker is a Senior Lecturer in French Studies at Queen’s University Bel¬fast. She has published widely on Caribbean writing in French, notably on contem¬porary fiction and autobiography. Anthony Soares is a Lecturer in Portuguese Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. His chief research interests focus on postcolo¬nial theory and literature in relation to the Portuguese-speaking world.
The island, because of its supposed isola¬tion, and its apparent small scale, has his¬torically been a privileged site of colonial aggression and acquisitiveness. Yet the island has also been imagined as a uni¬quely 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 to¬day’s ‘postcolonial’ islands are routinely denied access to the perceived ‘main¬land’. And, in islands freed from overt colonialism, but often beset by neocolo¬nial forces of domination and control, identities are constructed so as to diffe¬rentiate insider from outsider – even when the outsider comes from within. This is the first volume devoted ex¬plicitly to the postcolonial island, con¬ceived 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 real¬ities of formerly colonized island nations; the phenomenon of ‘for¬eign’ commu¬nities living within a domi¬nant host com¬munity; and the existence of (local) prac¬tices and theoretical per¬spectives that complement, but are often critical of, pre¬vailing theories of the post-colonial. The islands treated in the volume include Ireland, Montserrat, Mar¬tinique, Mauri¬tius, and East Timor, and the collection includes more broadly conceived histori¬cal and theo¬retical essays. The volume should be re-quired 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 Maeve McCusker is a Senior Lecturer in French Studies at Queen’s University Bel¬fast. She has published widely on Caribbean writing in French, notably on contem¬porary fiction and autobiography. Anthony Soares is a Lecturer in Portuguese Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. His chief research interests focus on postcolo¬nial theory and literature in relation to the Portuguese-speaking world.

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Maeve McCusker

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