Assuming that in one way or another Latin American literature deals with the shock caused by the conquest and colonization of the New World, my dissertation reads this literature by paying special attention to texts that by undermining Western hegemonic logics, successfully perform decolonization. It is in the process of drawing this alternative map for reading Latin American literatures, that I have realized the extent to which memory becomes a key factor in decolonizing literary projects. It is a special configuration of memory that keeps literature loyal to the lettered citys principles, turning it into a colonizing device. In that regard, it is assumed that the only way to deal with otherness is to wipe out any sign of difference that may eventually disturb hegemonic discourses. Memory, however, can also work in a different direction, uncovering alliances between writing and power, and by so doing confronting dominant narratives with other rationalities. In this sense, memory proves to be strongly linked to the creation, reproduction, updating and deconstruction of cultural imaginaries. Understood as a tool of decolonization, memory opens the way to alternative epistemologies.
Trying to identify epistemological differences between projects of decolonization based on specific uses of memory, I have selected a body of texts produced in a diverse set of geopolitical areas. First, I concentrate on literary works emerged from locations where a massive indigenous population proactively affects the formation of a given national culture, producing the emergence of subjectivities and forms of socialization other than those legitimized by cultural and historical elites. In a second approach, I examine how a similar process takes place in zones with reduced indigenous settlements and/or where Indians have largely been made invisible by national power centers. In these cases, literature achieves a decolonizing performance by contaminating itself with the same cultural logics that the elites seek to isolate. In this way, nations that imagine themselves as clean of the Indian, are nevertheless able to produce a literature that unexpectedly questions hegemonic discourses by indirectly making connections with indigenous rationalities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-05242010-162745 |
| Date | 28 September 2010 |
| Creators | Alfaro, Raquel Ursula |
| Contributors | Juan Duchesne-Winter, John Beverley, Elizabeth Monasterios, Hermann Herlinghaus, Harry Sanabria |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-05242010-162745/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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