The Western imagination has ascribed histories and identities of the Marquesas Islands throughout centuries of evolving discourses and representations as a paradoxical paradise, bolstering colonialist ideologies of social evolutionary theory. The islands have either been represented as backwards on a social scale to justify Western dominance, or have been represented as being in a state of authentic human nature out of colonial guilt and imperialist nostalgia. These representations reveal a paradox in which the Marquesas is ascribed in the Western imagination as a degenerate space, yet also as a space where the regeneration of human nature is made possible— provided that a time-backwards Marquesas is dependent on a civilized West.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CLAREMONT/oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:scripps_theses-1416 |
Date | 01 January 2014 |
Creators | Zenel, Christine A |
Publisher | Scholarship @ Claremont |
Source Sets | Claremont Colleges |
Detected Language | English |
Type | text |
Format | application/pdf |
Source | Scripps Senior Theses |
Rights | © 2014 Christine A. Zenel |
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