Routes and Roots: Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island LiteraturesRoutes and Roots is the first comparative study of Caribbean and Pacific Island literatures and the first work to bring indigenous and diaspora literary studies together in a sustained dialogue. Taking the tidalectic between land and sea as a dynamic starting point, Elizabeth DeLoughrey foregrounds geography and history in her exploration of how island writers inscribe the complex relation between routes and roots. The first section looks at the sea as history in literatures of the Atlantic middle passage and Pacific Island voyaging, theorizing the transoceanic imaginary. The second section turns to the land to examine indigenous epistemologies in nation-building literatures. Both sections are particularly attentive to the ways in which the metaphors of routes and roots are gendered, exploring how masculine travelers are naturalized through their voyages across feminized lands and seas. This methodology of charting transoceanic migration and landfall helps elucidate how theories and people travel, positioning island cultures in the world historical process. constitute the very metropoles that deemed them peripheral to modernity. Fresh in its ideas, original in its approach, Routes and Roots engages broadly with history, anthropology, and feminist, postcolonial, Caribbean, and Pacific literary and cultural studies. It productively traverses diaspora and indigenous studies in a way that will facilitate broader discussion between these often segregated disciplines. |
Contents
Modernity and Creolization | 51 |
An Ocean in the Blood | 96 |
National Genealogies | 161 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
African American ancestors argued arrival Atlantic becomes Black blood body British called canoe Carib Caribbean century chapter claims colonial complex concept connections constituted construction contemporary continuity corporeal cultural diaspora discourse discussed draws economic emphasize engagement ethnic European explains explore fact genealogy global Hearne historiography human identity imagination important Indian indigenous isolated Kahoʻolawe land landscape language literary literature Maori mapping maritime masculine material memory metaphors middle passage migration movement narrative native natural navigation novel ocean origins Pacific Islands past political Polynesian position practices present Press production racial refers reflects region relations relationship rendered represents roots routes settlement ship signify slave social South sovereignty space spatial studies suggests symbolic theories tidalectic tion trade tradition transoceanic turn University Press vaka vessel vital voyaging Wendt western whakapapa women writing Zealand