John Benjamins Publishing Company
Chapter 4. Postcolonial images, ambivalence and weak border zones
Abstract
This chapter deals with the largely unknown and slightly studied travel account of Otto Nordenskjöld in the Argentinian-Chilean Patagonia as part of the preparation to his well-known and documented travel to Antarctica. By using several key terms of postcolonial theory, such as ambivalence, border, identity, binaries and in-between, an analysis of the way in which Nordenskjöld’s portrays the image of the Indigenous people and how civilisation treats them (from Nordenskjöld’s perspective) is proposed. Thus, it is argued that, in the complex relation between travel account and images, an ambiguous representation of European values and the Indigenous people arises, which destabilises the typical binaries of the colonial discourse. The contribution demonstrates that, as travellers transition between two realms, they may find it challenging to shed their European viewpoint, even in situations where colonial brutality is openly denounced.
Abstract
This chapter deals with the largely unknown and slightly studied travel account of Otto Nordenskjöld in the Argentinian-Chilean Patagonia as part of the preparation to his well-known and documented travel to Antarctica. By using several key terms of postcolonial theory, such as ambivalence, border, identity, binaries and in-between, an analysis of the way in which Nordenskjöld’s portrays the image of the Indigenous people and how civilisation treats them (from Nordenskjöld’s perspective) is proposed. Thus, it is argued that, in the complex relation between travel account and images, an ambiguous representation of European values and the Indigenous people arises, which destabilises the typical binaries of the colonial discourse. The contribution demonstrates that, as travellers transition between two realms, they may find it challenging to shed their European viewpoint, even in situations where colonial brutality is openly denounced.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Series editor’s preface ix
- Author biographies xi
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Cultural transfer in the French Enlightenment 16
- Chapter 2. Cultural transfer as a performative act in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796) 35
- Chapter 3. The temporalities of cultural transfer 62
- Chapter 4. Postcolonial images, ambivalence and weak border zones 81
- Chapter 5. Theatre as an engine for German-Swedish cultural transfer in the early twentieth century 104
- Chapter 6. “The East I Know” 135
- Chapter 7. Good migrations? 161
- Chapter 8. Exile, travel narrative and cultural transfer in Négar Djavadi’s Désorientale (2016) 181
- Index 203
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Series editor’s preface ix
- Author biographies xi
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Cultural transfer in the French Enlightenment 16
- Chapter 2. Cultural transfer as a performative act in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796) 35
- Chapter 3. The temporalities of cultural transfer 62
- Chapter 4. Postcolonial images, ambivalence and weak border zones 81
- Chapter 5. Theatre as an engine for German-Swedish cultural transfer in the early twentieth century 104
- Chapter 6. “The East I Know” 135
- Chapter 7. Good migrations? 161
- Chapter 8. Exile, travel narrative and cultural transfer in Négar Djavadi’s Désorientale (2016) 181
- Index 203
