The Aesthetic Terrain of Settler Colonialism: Katherine Mansfield and Anton Chekhov’s Natives

Main author: Gould, Rebecca Ruth
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-40478
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description While Anton Chekhov’s influence on Katherine Mansfield is widely acknowledged, the two writers’ settler colonial aesthetics have not been brought into systematic comparison. Yet Chekhov’s chronicle of Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East parallels in important ways Mansfield’s near-contemporaneous account of colonial life in New Zealand. Both writers were concerned with a specific variant of the colonial situation: settler colonialism, which prioritises appropriation of land over the governance of peoples. This essay considers the aesthetic strategies each writer developed for capturing that milieu in their travel writings within the framework of the settler colonial aesthetics that has guided much anthropological engagement with endangered peoples.
format Journal Article
author Gould, Rebecca Ruth
author_facet Gould, Rebecca Ruth
authorStr Gould, Rebecca Ruth
author_letter Gould, Rebecca Ruth
title The Aesthetic Terrain of Settler Colonialism: Katherine Mansfield and Anton Chekhov’s Natives
publisher Taylor and Francis
publishDate 2019
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/40478/