Ghosts from the Abyss: the imagination of new worlds in the sea-narratives of Afrofuturism
This contribution aims to investigate a different ghostscape, shaped by the turbulent materiality of the sea: the abyss. A space of trauma and simultaneously of becoming, it is populated by spectral ob- jects, traces, fragments, and, above all, ghosts. Édouard Glissant,1 a major thinker of the aby...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
professionaldreamers
2022-07-01
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| Series: | lo Squaderno |
| Online Access: | http://www.losquaderno.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/losquaderno62.pdf#page=39 |
| _version_ | 1797338369483603968 |
|---|---|
| author | Gabriella Palermo |
| author_facet | Gabriella Palermo |
| author_sort | Gabriella Palermo |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This contribution aims to investigate a different ghostscape, shaped by the turbulent materiality of
the sea: the abyss. A space of trauma and simultaneously of becoming, it is populated by spectral ob-
jects, traces, fragments, and, above all, ghosts. Édouard Glissant,1 a major thinker of the abyss, identi-
fied it with the space of loss opened by the Middle Passage in the Atlantic Ocean during the slave
trade. Paul Gilroy2 will name this space The Black Atlantic: a space of violence of the rising capitalistic
system and its colonial routes, a space of memory of Black subjectivities. Attending the wake3 that
reproduces this trauma along the sea lines, another such abysmal space is, today, The Black Mediter-
ranean: a space of violence along the migrants’ routes, a space of (re)generation of sea-related Black
counter-practices, counter-narratives, and counter-subjectivities.4 With this as a background, we can
see how abysses are not signified by an absence, but on the contrary by a counter-presence: since
“drowning is not ashes, water is not earth, and bodies disappear differently”,5 the ghosts inhabiting
the abysses are not mere abstract or metaphorical figures, but presences-absences made of a differ-
ent materiality: they are an “intermediate presence between the visible and the invisible, the real and
the unreal, the past and the present, the conscious and the unconscious”: such “absences can have a
subjectivity of their own, an agency, a regime of perception that makes them de facto presences”. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T09:30:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9e0f018d304e457a8d5694f30c38d163 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1973-9141 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T09:30:11Z |
| publishDate | 2022-07-01 |
| publisher | professionaldreamers |
| record_format | Article |
| series | lo Squaderno |
| spelling | doaj.art-9e0f018d304e457a8d5694f30c38d1632024-01-31T05:36:59Zengprofessionaldreamerslo Squaderno1973-91412022-07-011723942Ghosts from the Abyss: the imagination of new worlds in the sea-narratives of AfrofuturismGabriella Palermo0University of Palermo.This contribution aims to investigate a different ghostscape, shaped by the turbulent materiality of the sea: the abyss. A space of trauma and simultaneously of becoming, it is populated by spectral ob- jects, traces, fragments, and, above all, ghosts. Édouard Glissant,1 a major thinker of the abyss, identi- fied it with the space of loss opened by the Middle Passage in the Atlantic Ocean during the slave trade. Paul Gilroy2 will name this space The Black Atlantic: a space of violence of the rising capitalistic system and its colonial routes, a space of memory of Black subjectivities. Attending the wake3 that reproduces this trauma along the sea lines, another such abysmal space is, today, The Black Mediter- ranean: a space of violence along the migrants’ routes, a space of (re)generation of sea-related Black counter-practices, counter-narratives, and counter-subjectivities.4 With this as a background, we can see how abysses are not signified by an absence, but on the contrary by a counter-presence: since “drowning is not ashes, water is not earth, and bodies disappear differently”,5 the ghosts inhabiting the abysses are not mere abstract or metaphorical figures, but presences-absences made of a differ- ent materiality: they are an “intermediate presence between the visible and the invisible, the real and the unreal, the past and the present, the conscious and the unconscious”: such “absences can have a subjectivity of their own, an agency, a regime of perception that makes them de facto presences”.http://www.losquaderno.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/losquaderno62.pdf#page=39 |
| spellingShingle | Gabriella Palermo Ghosts from the Abyss: the imagination of new worlds in the sea-narratives of Afrofuturism lo Squaderno |
| title | Ghosts from the Abyss: the imagination of new worlds in the sea-narratives of Afrofuturism |
| title_full | Ghosts from the Abyss: the imagination of new worlds in the sea-narratives of Afrofuturism |
| title_fullStr | Ghosts from the Abyss: the imagination of new worlds in the sea-narratives of Afrofuturism |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ghosts from the Abyss: the imagination of new worlds in the sea-narratives of Afrofuturism |
| title_short | Ghosts from the Abyss: the imagination of new worlds in the sea-narratives of Afrofuturism |
| title_sort | ghosts from the abyss the imagination of new worlds in the sea narratives of afrofuturism |
| url | http://www.losquaderno.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/losquaderno62.pdf#page=39 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT gabriellapalermo ghostsfromtheabysstheimaginationofnewworldsintheseanarrativesofafrofuturism |