Riassunto esame Cultura e letteratura inglese I, prof. Polopoli, libri consigliati The Black Atlantic, Gilroy e In the Falling snow, Phillips

The Black Atlantic di Paul Gilroy – In the Falling Snow di Caryl Phillips

Oggi vediamo una società inglese colorata, dove differenti culture non solo coesistono ma sono un mix, risultato certamente dalla globalizzazione odierna ma anche dal passato imperiale dell’impero. Today Britain is a rainbow of colours and cultures. Britain and British society of course the two are rainbow of colours and cultures and Britain cannot be considered an autochthon society of true born British man. Autochthon means society whose people originated from the society they live in. This is due to globalisation but also to Britain's history of imperialism.

The British Empire and the Triangular Trade

In fact in the 19th century, Great Britain emerged as an imperial nation and the global power. The British Empire was the greatest empire the world has ever seen. It began in the 15th and 16th centuries when global exploration began to establish overseas colonies. One of the most important reasons why these colonies were established was trade and financial benefit. In this sense, colonialism has to do with capitalism. The years which go from 1815 to 1914 are referred to as Britain’s emperor century. During this time, the British Empire included more than a quarter of the world’s population, and it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire. The empire was at its height during the reign of Queen Victoria, and there is no doubt that black slavery and the exploitation of black people have been at the heart of British Empire and its structure.

Across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, the triangular trade is so called because the journey of the ship across the Atlantic connected three continents and the economies of three different continental regions. The trading of slaves consists of three parts: the first one was from Europe to Africa and it’s the outward passage. Europeans exchanged above all weapons and gunpowder for black slaves, that is for human beings. This human cargo was transported across the Atlantic Ocean. The ships were densely packed. The voyage was brutal and terrible. And because of the bad living conditions, many Africans died, and those who died were thrown over the boat. It is the most dangerous part of the journey. Sometimes blacks were thrown over the boats even if they were still alive. Slaves were packed like cargo between decks and often had to lie in each other’s face, and once in America, they were sold to slave owners who used slaves to work their plantation. African people were turned into objects. The Africans' slaves are sold with any cultural products that is with plantations' goods. So, Europeans brought back sugar, coffee, cotton, spices. The journey back home, back to England, is the last round of the triangular trade. It has been estimated that during 300 years of this operation, over 12 million blacks were shipped in chains across the Atlantic middle passage.

The Middle Passage

The Atlantic middle passage or simply the middle passage refers to the Atlantic crossing from Africa to the Americas, experienced by commodified human cargo, so human beings turned into objects. Many slave trading ships traveled in a triangular pattern with three main passages: the first one started in England, the main passage transported manufactured goods to West Africa.

Middle passage, as if two simple words can delineate a space that is not specifically Britain or America or Africa, but it’s a mix of all these cultures. The Atlantic black because of the skin color of the body of black people thrown over the ships both dead or alive. As for the title of Paul Gilroy’s text, capitalism is connected to modernity. According to Gilroy, we cannot understand the experience of modernity without making reference to the black Atlantic.

The Concept of Diaspora

As for the term diaspora, of course, it comes from Greek and means dispersal. The original meaning of the term refers to a physical dispersal of Jews throughout the world. But it is also used to refer to people who have been dispersed, scattered, displayed, dislocated from their homeland due to exile. So the term is used to describe groups of people who have been removed from their homeland and forced to migration. Gilroy’s black Atlantic has to do with diaspora. It foregrounds the flow movement of people within the black Atlantic to avoid cultural essentialism that characterizes cultural nationalism.

Cultural essentialism according to theorists of cultural essentialism, culture and identities remain always the same because their essence doesn’t change, that’s why essentialism. But we know that both culture, identities, and also cultural identities always undergo an unstoppable change because as subjects, we change, we experience certain things, we face certain situations, we move towards certain countries, certain cultures, and we change, revolve. We as cultural identities never remain the same. So cultural essentialism doesn’t exist. Nationalism is always based on cultural essentialism.

The Black Atlantic as a Transnational Space

Siamo sempre in costante sviluppo. The black Atlantic becomes a transnational space of cultural exchange that connects people. (vision positive del black Atlantic, non soltanto come luogo di rottura e di schiavitù ma anche come luogo che unisce le persone, luogo di scambio, le navi con il loro andirivieni creano mobilità, dentro la nave c'è scambio. È una vision positiva, altrimenti non ci sarebbe letteratura allora il popolo black doveva soccombere per sempre).

The black Atlantic is a space of dispersion and ruptures, but it’s at the same time a transnational space of connections, of linkages because it connects people. Cosi teorizzato e cosi inteso, il black Atlantic è certamente uno spazio geografico, quello che abbiamo visto delineato dalle navi nel commercio degli schiavi ma diventa anche potente strumento evocativo che si riferisce a una dimensione che va al di là della sua fisicità e che ha un valore morale, valore di ricordo, è lo spazio della tratta degli schiavi, del dolore degli schiavi, è una metafora che evoca esperienze storiche, se dico che è una metafora non voglio negare la sua esistenza, posta a sua esistenza fisica, il black Atlantic è altro, anche l’aggettivo black ha un significato che è altamente metaforico, siamo a un livello superiore.

(Esso erode questi confini, queste frontiere delle nazioni, visto che è uno spazio transnazionale le frontiere vengono attraversate, erose, le frontiere diventano liquide, cadono. L’oceano atlantico diventa potente strumento che veicola l’instabilità perché è liquido, instabilità significa la mobilità, il cambiamento. Lungi da ogni idea di cultura ferma nell’essenzialismo, statica, tutto è in venire, si sviluppa, cambia, progredisce e allora ecco che siccome è spazio di mobilità e siccome questi soggetti vengono strappati alla loro origine le roots, le radici vengono trasformate in routes, in strade, si aprono nuovi orizzonti).

Va oltre le strutture della nazione e i limiti. Lo stato nazione non tiene più perché è punto di incrocio, di mescolanza, di intersezione, di ibridismo, di impurità, di incontro, di scambio. Then the black Atlantic is a visible space, a geographic space and as a material space it is characterized by movement. It is precisely the liquidity of the ocean and its dynamic mobility better reduce the ocean to a metaphorical space of displacement whose instability metaphorically reproduces the fluidity of the identities it has produced.

The Relationship Between Identity and Place

It questions the idea of place-based identities that had their roots in a land and are marked by stability. The relationship between identity and place is often taken for granted and the idea of belonging has usually to do with this relationship. Our sense of belonging is linked to the place we come from. (stiamo parlando di identità culturali, però il nazionalismo ha anche a che fare con il nazionalismo certamente place-based, l’identità nazionale è certamente place-based).

Which in turn has to do with the idea of origins to the place we come from, but the middle passage becomes a symbol of this rupture and so the stable relationship between place and identity is disrupted, broken. The black Atlantic offers a theoretical framework (una cornice teorica) to reflect on how space, place, identity are all marked by difference.

Il messaggio è che con questo spostamento, con questa mobilità, niente e nessuno, nessun soggetto, nessuna identità, nessuna cultura rimane intoccato, puro, fermo nell’essenzialismo, ma tutto è un progredire, un evolvere, un cambiamento e l’Atlantico diventa potente strumento per indagare e definire questo cambiamento quindi ogni cosa è caratterizzata dalla differenza.

The black Atlantic is at the same time a place of disruption and at the same time a space of connection. Non può essere connection se prima non c’è mobilità, va da sé. Its cultural dimension is a space of transit and of cultural encounter that’s why it’s transnational, it is a space of exchange, it is intercultural because it is the result of the mixing of different cultures. It is marked by hybridity (ibridismo, impurità). The rise concept of the black Atlantic conveys the idea of race as transnational and intercultural rather than national.

Philips

The mobility of Philips' characters is a challenge even in traditional neologism because traditional narratives belong to the main narrative, the Western narrative, the European narrative, the colonial narrative. And this colonial narrative is also defined as the narrative of the nation.