Unfolding the postcolonial city. Marginality and resistance between novel and collage

D'Ascenzo, Fabiana 2024. Unfolding the postcolonial city. Marginality and resistance between novel and collage. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This research investigates forms of urban marginality and resistance in the postcolonial city by analysing novels and practising collage; in doing this, it explores a possible methodology and considers the decolonial potential of creative approaches in geography. The postcolonial city is an exemplary case of space as a process, while marginality and resistance are aspects of the processual nature of space. The novels Congo Inc. Bismarck’s Testament by In Koli Jean Bofane (2018) and The Land at the End of the World by António Lobo Antunes (1979), respectively set in Kinshasa and Lisbon, are the starting points for the analysis. Following a theoretical framework inspired by Jacques Derrida’s notion of différance and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s idea of assemblage, the work merges dismantling reading of the literary texts with visual explorations and assemblages. It first identifies the forms of urban marginality and possibilities of resistance in the novels, then extracts and prolongs them outside of the texts through social scientific literature and visual materials, generating lines of flight and rhizomatic investigations. These lines of flight coalesce in collages, which assemble components of diverse natures in planes of composition centred on simultaneity, movement, and overlapping. Articulating resistance in a Deleuzian key as a line of flight and space-producing force contributes to understanding alternative creative methodologies as possible forms of resistance; indeed, they are potential ways to decolonise the discipline by making space for other practices and forms of knowledge. Therefore, the object of the investigation and the methodology merge towards a common goal: that of contributing to decolonising the colonial matrix of power in its different forms by considering epistemological aspects.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Urban marginality, resistance, decolonial, collage, lines of flight, exhaustion, Kinshasa, Lisbon, In Koli Jean Bofane, António Lobo Antunes.
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	15 April 2025
Last Modified:	15 Apr 2025 15:18
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/177677

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