Colonial heterotopia as metanarrative in white rhodesian writing: a post-millennial reading of Peter Godwin’s Mukiwa: a white boy in Africa.

The concept of space, both as metaphor and metonym, is critical to the understanding of the politics of identity construction and expression in white Rhodesian writing. The presence of conceived white spaces and symbols continue to be valorised and celebrated in white Rhodesian writings despite the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Javangwe, Tasiyana D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Unisa Press 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2016.1235389
http://hdl.handle.net/11408/4491
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The concept of space, both as metaphor and metonym, is critical to the understanding of the politics of identity construction and expression in white Rhodesian writing. The presence of conceived white spaces and symbols continue to be valorised and celebrated in white Rhodesian writings despite the new political dispensation ushered in 1980, suggesting a deep-seated imagination that continues to inform and nourish white colonial identities. Such imaginations of space can, it will be argued in this article, be interpreted as metanarratives that strive towards self-preservation strategies of white identity and discursive privilege. Foucault’s concept of heterotopia is used in this discussion as a suitable conceptual framework both to apprehend and destabilise Rhodesian imaginations of privileged spaces in the post-millennial era.