Gender and the “postcolonial exotic”

Abstract

This article questions the distinction between what qualifies as “marginal” (i.e., Lusophone) and “central” (i.e., Anglophone) theorizations of the postcolonial. I argue that Lusophone postcolonialism will carve far more pertinent solutions to the legacies of colonial power by carefully examining the coincidences, and not solely the differences, between Anglo-Saxon and Lusophone postcolonial theories. Current theorizations from each side in fact overlap in their negligence of gender and sexual difference variables when discussing how marginality is valued and affected by local and global markets (i.e., how it is commodified). This article deals with the political significance of such theoretical-imposed silence, in the light of two Anglophone and Lusophone key theory texts: respectively, Graham Huggan’s The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing the Margins and Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ “Between Prospero and Caliban”.

Transcultural Bodies: A Comparative Approach to Dissident ‘Minor’ Women’s Writings in Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish

“…I acknowledge that this decolonial gesture (Mignolo 2000) disrupts the reading experience, yet it draws attention to both the value and the predicaments of translation. I cite For seminal discussions about Hispanophone literatures, see Bacheng 2000, Brancato 2009, Kanellos 2011 For Italophone literature studies, check Wright 2004, Ben-Ghiat and Fuller 2005, Parati 2005, Ponzanesi and Merolla 2005, Bekers, Helff, and Merolla 2009, Curti 2007, Coppola 2011, Lombardi-Diop and Romeo 2013 For the Lusophone context, see Santos 2001, Owen and Rothwell 2004, Branche 2006, Madureira 2006, Medeiros 2007, Rothwell 2007, Brugioni et al 2012, Ferreira 2007, Martins 2013 the published translations of the English editions of Caderno de Memórias Coloniais [Notebook of Colonial Memories] (2009) by Figueiredo, and Madre Piccola [Little Mother] by Farah, unless otherwise indicated. All other translations are my own.…”