Postcolonial ecologies and the gaze of animals: reading some contemporary southern African narratives.(Critical Essay) From: Journal of Literary Studies | Date: December 1, 2003| Author: Woodward, Wendy | COPYRIGHT 2003 Literator Society of South Africa. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Summary

This essay is located within the new field of Animal Studies, and foregrounds literary representations of animals within a historicised culture, while stressing that ecologies are inseparable from politics and culture. Three southern African writers, Mda, Vera and Couto, contradict colonial discursivities about nature in their postcolonial texts. Their representations of human-animal relationships will be discussed, to some extent, in relation to Derridean concep...