"Man-as-environment" : spatialising racial and natural otherness in Caryl Phillips's "A distant shore" and "In the falling snow"

Jessica Maufort
{"title":"\"Man-as-environment\" : spatialising racial and natural otherness in Caryl Phillips's \"A distant shore\" and \"In the falling snow\"","authors":"Jessica Maufort","doi":"10.37536/ECOZONA.2014.5.1.592","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Examining Caryl Phillips’s later fiction (A Distant Shore and In the Falling Snow) through the characters’ lived experience of their environment, this article seeks to pave the way toward a mutually enriching dialogue between postcolonial studies and urban ecocriticism. Phillips’s British novels show how Western racist/colonial underpinnings that persist in a postcolonial context are manifest in the phenomenon of spatialisation of race. The latter devises separate spaces of Otherness, imbued with savage connotations, where the undesirable Other is ostracised. The enriching concept of “man-in-environment” is thus reconfigured so that the postcolonial subject’s identity is defined by such bias-constructed dwelling-places. Consequently, the Other’s sense of place is a highly alienated one. The decayed suburban nature and the frightening/impersonal city of London are also “othered” entities with which the protagonists cannot interrelate. My “man-as-environment” concept envisions man and place as two subjected Others plagued by spatialisation of Otherness. The latter actually debunks the illusion of a postcolonial British Arcadia, as the immigrants’ plight is that of an antipastoral disenchantment with England. The impossibility of being a “man-in-place” in a postcolonial context precisely calls for a truly reconciling postpastoral relationship between humans and place, a relationship thus informed by the absolute need for environmental and social justice combined.","PeriodicalId":30383,"journal":{"name":"Ecozon","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2014-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ecozon","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2014.5.1.592","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3

Abstract

Examining Caryl Phillips’s later fiction (A Distant Shore and In the Falling Snow) through the characters’ lived experience of their environment, this article seeks to pave the way toward a mutually enriching dialogue between postcolonial studies and urban ecocriticism. Phillips’s British novels show how Western racist/colonial underpinnings that persist in a postcolonial context are manifest in the phenomenon of spatialisation of race. The latter devises separate spaces of Otherness, imbued with savage connotations, where the undesirable Other is ostracised. The enriching concept of “man-in-environment” is thus reconfigured so that the postcolonial subject’s identity is defined by such bias-constructed dwelling-places. Consequently, the Other’s sense of place is a highly alienated one. The decayed suburban nature and the frightening/impersonal city of London are also “othered” entities with which the protagonists cannot interrelate. My “man-as-environment” concept envisions man and place as two subjected Others plagued by spatialisation of Otherness. The latter actually debunks the illusion of a postcolonial British Arcadia, as the immigrants’ plight is that of an antipastoral disenchantment with England. The impossibility of being a “man-in-place” in a postcolonial context precisely calls for a truly reconciling postpastoral relationship between humans and place, a relationship thus informed by the absolute need for environmental and social justice combined.
“人即环境”:卡里尔·菲利普斯《遥远的海岸》和《飘落的雪中》对种族和自然差异性的空间化
本文通过考察卡里尔·菲利普斯的后期小说(《遥远的海岸》和《飘落的雪》)中人物对环境的生活体验,试图为后殖民研究和城市生态批评之间相互丰富的对话铺平道路。菲利普斯的英国小说展示了西方种族主义/殖民主义的基础如何在后殖民背景下持续存在,并在种族的空间化现象中得到体现。后者设计了他者的独立空间,充满了野蛮的内涵,在那里不受欢迎的他者被排斥。因此,“人在环境”的丰富概念被重新配置,后殖民主体的身份被这种偏见建构的居住地所定义。因此,他者的地方感是高度异化的。腐朽的郊区自然和可怕的/没有人情味的伦敦城市也是主人公无法相互联系的“他者”实体。我的“人即环境”概念将人和地方想象成两个受他者性空间化困扰的臣服的他者。后者实际上揭穿了后殖民时代英国阿卡迪亚的幻想,因为移民的困境是对英格兰的反田园主义觉醒。在后殖民背景下成为“人在地”的不可能性,恰恰要求在人与地之间建立一种真正和谐的后牧区关系,这种关系因此受到对环境和社会正义的绝对需要的影响。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
自引率
0.00%
发文量
51
审稿时长
30 weeks
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信