TY - JOUR
T1 - Against the City
T2 - What Derek Walcott Has to Teach Us about the City Imaginary
AU - Woods, Maxwell
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 American Association of Geographers.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - The basic argument of this article is that the Caribbean author, Derek Walcott, illuminates how the concept of “the city” can be used to enable a geopolitical system of centralized power seated in culturally, politically, and economically significant nodes (i.e., “cities”). In short, following Walcott, the concept of “the city” at times serves as a cultural technology to justify colonization, the monopolization of political power, and the domination of so-called peripheral sites. “The city” is not always a neutral descriptor of a given geographical locus, but instead can be a cultural technology of power insofar as it is at times a concept employed in order to garner control over an extended territory from a socio-political center. To demonstrate this thesis, I engage in a close reading of Derek Walcott’s theoretical essays and epic poem, Omeros (1990).
AB - The basic argument of this article is that the Caribbean author, Derek Walcott, illuminates how the concept of “the city” can be used to enable a geopolitical system of centralized power seated in culturally, politically, and economically significant nodes (i.e., “cities”). In short, following Walcott, the concept of “the city” at times serves as a cultural technology to justify colonization, the monopolization of political power, and the domination of so-called peripheral sites. “The city” is not always a neutral descriptor of a given geographical locus, but instead can be a cultural technology of power insofar as it is at times a concept employed in order to garner control over an extended territory from a socio-political center. To demonstrate this thesis, I engage in a close reading of Derek Walcott’s theoretical essays and epic poem, Omeros (1990).
KW - Caribbean
KW - city
KW - colonialism
KW - literary urban studies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85173989852&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/2373566X.2023.2248227
DO - 10.1080/2373566X.2023.2248227
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85173989852
SN - 2373-566X
VL - 9
SP - 554
EP - 568
JO - Geohumanities
JF - Geohumanities
IS - 2
ER -