Against the City: What Derek Walcott Has to Teach Us about the City Imaginary

Abstract

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).

本文的基本论点是, 加勒比籍作者Derek Walcott阐述了在文化、政治和经济的重要节点——“城市”, 如何利用“城市”这个概念来建立中央集权地缘政治体系。Walcott认为, “城市”概念有时候是合法进行殖民、政治权力垄断和外围掌控的文化技术。“城市”并非总是对地理位置的客观描述。”城市”是权力的文化技术, 用于从社会政治中心控制更广泛的领地。为了证明这一论点, 我仔细解读了Derek Walcott的理论散文和史诗——《奥梅罗斯》(1990)。

El argumento básico de este artículo es que el autor caribeño Derek Walcott aclara cómo el concepto de “la ciudad” puede usarse para hacer posible un sistema geopolítico de poder centralizado asentado en nodos cultural, política y económicamente significativos (esto es, “ciudades”). En síntesis, de acuerdo con Walcott, a veces el concepto de “la ciudad” sirve como tecnología cultural para justificar la colonización, la monopolización del poder político y el dominio de los así llamados sitios periféricos. “La ciudad” no siempre es el descriptor neutral de un determinado lugar geográfico sino más que eso una tecnología cultural de poder, en la medida en que a veces es un concepto que se usa para obtener el control de un centro socio-político. Para demostrar esta tesis, me entrego a una lectura atenta de los ensayos teóricos de Derek Walcott y del poema épico Omeros (1990).

Key Words:

• Caribbean
• city
• colonialism
• literary urban studies

 :

• 加勒比
• 城市
• 殖民主义
• 文学城市研究

 :

• Caribe
• colonialismo
• estudios literarios urbanos
• la ciudad

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the anonymous reviewers who provided invaluable feedback in the development of this article.

Notes

1 Research funding for this article is thanks to the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo de Chile) (ANID), FONDECYT Initiation project No. 11220089, “Mythical Urbanisms: Myth and the Decolonization of Cities.”

2 Recent discussions of planetary urbanization have complicated the “demarcations separating urban, suburban, and rural zones” (Brenner and Schmid 2011, 12). Instead, “the urban represents an increasingly worldwide condition” in which “even spaces that lie well beyond the traditional city cores and suburban peripheries…have become integral parts of the worldwide urban fabric” (Brenner and Schmid 2011, 12). One can therefore functionally distinguish between this general condition of urbanism and discreet “traditional city cores.” In this article “city” will refer to the latter. For this reason, I will use “city” as both an adjective and a noun. This is an operative vocabulary for this article and is not meant to reflect broader terminological use. Some may argue that this object of study is out of date “in the face of sprawling urban settlements and ‘planetary’ urbanisation processes” (Robinson 2022, 1). Though outside the scope of this article to respond in detail as to why the “residual concept” (Robinson 2022, 1) of “the city” is still used, this article does imply a hypothesis: its function as a cultural technology (rather than a constative statement) is still useful in shaping and maintaining a cultural politics based on the centralization and monopolization of political-economic power; “the city” is not so much a residual concept as a still functional performative statement.

3 Phrasing thanks to Spivak’s (2012) definition of agency as institutionally validated action.

4 This idea is highly indebted to the Abya Yalan decolonial theory of how our “locus of enunciation” transforms our modes of thought (Keme 2018; Mignolo 2000; Rosenberg 2006). Although critical of decolonial theory, Carlos Colmenares Gil’s (2023) theorization of thinking from the barrio is of particular note here.

5 Hence why I do not engage such a theorization in this article, instead limiting myself to a critique of the concept of “the city.”

6 They have elaborated on their argument elsewhere (Brenner and Schmid 2015).

7 For instance, Derrida deconstructs the divisions between writing/speech (Derrida 1997), cure/poison (Derrida 1981), and animal/human (Derrida 2002).

8 Additionally, Culture with a capital “C” refers to globally validated culture.

9 The critique that négritude reproduces colonial manichaeism is common (Mbembe 2017).

10 See Dionne Brand’s critique of Walcott (Gingell 1994).

11 This idea of “otherwise” has been theorized by Walsh and Mignolo (2018).

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this article is thanks to ANID, FONDECYT Iniciación, project No. 11220089, “Mythical Urbanisms: Myth and the Decolonization of Cities.”

Notes on contributors

Maxwell Woods

MAXWELL WOODS is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Literature, Faculty of Liberal Arts, at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Viña del Mar, Chile. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the relationship between social movements, literary urban studies, and environmental humanities.