Îléité

Due to the historical and geographical impact of colonialism, the field of Island Studies and scholarship on Postcolonialism are both concerned with issues such as agency, power relations and essentializing dichotomies just to name a few. Instead of having provoked new interdisciplinary conversations, these commonalities have dissimulated notable ideological and methodological disagreements; while Literary Studies enabled the emergence of postcolonial critique, its contribution to the field of Island Studies remains marginal. To signal a methodological step towards framing the emerging discipline of Island Literary Studies, Îléité foregrounds new literary perspectives on islands as 'real-and-imagined' spaces. Three intentions underpin this project: to introduce the perspective of Island Studies to a Francophone academic readership; to demonstrate that a dialogue between Island Studies and Literary Criticism can not only produce original and relevant scholarship, but that it can allow us to rethink dialectic relationships such as identity and otherness; and finally, this book seeks to conceptualise the island space as a lived experience in the historical context of former French colonies. Rather than 'highlighting the social (spatial) practices inherent to the literary forms under consideration' as undertaken by Henri Lefebvre, this study examines the textualization of the lived experience of these practices, notably that of liminality, through the works of three island writers: Gisèle Pineau (Guadeloupe), Axel Gauvin (Réunion Island) and Claudine Jacques (New Calédonia).