Reorienting the Utopian Island: Tropes, Toponymy and Transgression in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Indian Ocean and Caribbean Fictions
| dc.contributor.advisor | Moore, Fabienne | |
| dc.contributor.author | Hadjivassiliou, Sheela | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-01-09T22:41:21Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-01-09T22:41:21Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-01-09 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Fields like postcolonial studies widely deploy terms like multiculturalism, métissage (mixing) and créolité (creoleness) to describe the multiplicity of identity and heritage found in the regions of the global South. These terms tend to have positive connotations; however, in this dissertation I argue that although they valorize the diasporic identity and racial mixing of the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, they also reinforce an aestheticized representation of these spaces that reproduces the trope of the “utopian island”—a trope that has recurred throughout literature, travel narratives and tourist brochures. These representations often rely on the illusion of successful multicultural coexistence that obfuscates the racial stratification that continues to persist in these creole archipelagic regions. My dissertation explores a series of narratives that challenge these tropes—both of the utopian creole island and postcolonial multicultural success. In these alternative narratives, twentieth and twenty-first century authors from the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and France use tropes, toponymy and transgression (of normative expressions of gender, race and class) to depict how subaltern bodies—undocumented migrants, “low-caste” and “no-caste” individuals, and sex workers—destabilize the neoliberal logic of the economies in which they participate through their embodied and affective actions. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/29139 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | Creolization | en_US |
| dc.subject | Diaspora | en_US |
| dc.subject | Francophone | en_US |
| dc.subject | Indian Ocean | en_US |
| dc.subject | Migration | en_US |
| dc.subject | Trash Studies | en_US |
| dc.title | Reorienting the Utopian Island: Tropes, Toponymy and Transgression in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Indian Ocean and Caribbean Fictions | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Department of Romance Languages | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |
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