The global north and the global south negotiations of power: a literary discourse study of Angola’s Agualusa and Ondjaki

Abstract

ABSTRACT Over the centuries, the contact zones of transculturation moved from colonised land to Portuguese soil and again to that of the former colonised. Power structures are diffuse as Angola again becomes a site of ‘co-presence, interaction understandings and practices within hierarchised systems of dominance’, although Portugal no longer is a colonial power. Mapping transformed relationships by using a literary analysis and the sociocognitive approach within critical discourse analysis, this paper explores four literary works by Angolan authors José Eduardo Agualusa and Ondjaki as well as six related academic articles Through text analysis, this paper explores global south/north negotiations of power and hierarchy in the literary works of Agualusa and Ondjaki and in the academic scholarship, six articles, focusing on their work. It explores how both fictional and academic texts metaphorically, or quite literally, encourage the colonisers to leave their former colonies – the settlers ought to set sail – in effect turning these texts into acts of subversion aimed at a normative global north academic context and readership.