‘To unawaken’d earth’: Paul Carter’s archipelagic poetics of decolonization

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Notes

1 Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Ode to the West Wind’, in Duncan Wu (ed), Romanticism: An Anthology, London: Blackwell, [1820] 2012, p 1134.

2 Frantz Fanon and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o might be considered representative thinkers of the older anti-colonial tradition. For recent work in decolonization that pays attention to the plurality and heterogeneity of the field, see, for instance, Walter D Mignolo and Catherine E Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.

3 For a news article summing up the clashes, see Simon Tisdall, ‘Muslims’ Rage at Macron Threatens to Escalate Tensions Across Europe’, The Guardian, 1 November 2020. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/01/macron-europe-new-clash-islamic-world (accessed 3 November 2020).

4 See Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

5 Although North Sentinel Island is a part of the South Andaman administrative district, within the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Indian authorities have historically recognized the islanders’ wish to be left alone. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Act of 1956 outlawed travel to the island, so that the estimated 50–200 Sentinelese did not fall victim to continental diseases. Worryingly, in 2018, and effective till 2022, the erstwhile Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime was relaxed for 29 islands in the region, including North Sentinel, although it remains difficult to set foot on the island, with Indian nationals requiring a ‘pass issued by the Deputy Commissioner for entering a tribal reserve, and foreigners … prior approval from the Principal Secretary (Tribal Welfare)’ (Mazoomdaar n.p.). Some environmentalists fear that North Sentinel will now fall prey to the same devastation that other tribal peoples of the Andaman have met with in the face of modernity (Dutt n.p.). In this regard, it is only fair to admit that the state’s protection of the North Sentinelese has been very much the exception in the region – other Andaman tribes such as the Jarawa and the Onge are extremely vulnerable and threated due their contact with the modern world (Dobson n.p). For more on North Sentienel, and the ecological challenges they face, see Jay Mazoomdaar, ‘Do Not Disturb This Andaman Island’, The Indian Express, 24 November 2018. Available at: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/north-sentinel-island-andaman-nicobar-tribe-american-killed-5460144/ (accessed 3 November 2020); Bahar Dutt, ‘Sentinelese Tribe: What Headlines Won’t Tell You About Eco-Tourism’, The Quint, 27 November 2018. Available at: https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/sentinelese-tribe-andaman-islanders-eco-tourism-challenges (accessed 3 November 2020); Jim Dobson, ‘A Human Zoo on the World's Most Dangerous Island? The Shocking Future of North Sentinel’, Forbes, 28 September 2015. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2015/09/28/will-the-worlds-most-dangerous-island-become-a-human-zoo-the-shocking-future-of-north-sentinel/?sh=41ca7d142688 (accessed 3 November 2020).

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Prayag Ray

Prayag Ray is currently Head of the Department of English, at St. Xavier's University, Kolkata. After studying at Jadavpur University and Jawaharlal University, he completed his PhD from Queen's University, Belfast, in 2018, working on representations of Hinduism in British colonial and missionary discourse. His areas of specialisation include: postcolonial studies, popular culture, and speculative fiction. He has published creative writing in Poetry Ireland Review, and critical work in Inhabiting Cyberspace in India (Springer Nature), Critical Posthumanism and Planetary Futures (Springer), and Strangers and Pilgrims (Atlande).