INTRODUCTION

Identities in the Contact Zone

Jon Stratton* and Vijay Devadas†
*Curtin University, School of Media, Culture & Creative Arts
†University of Otago, Department of Media, Film & Communication

Abstract

As Stuart Hall, following both Franz Fanon and Albert Memmi, has explained, identity is deeply imbricated with colonialism both for the coloniser and the colonised. Their cultures meet in what Mary Louise Pratt calls the contact zone. Inevitably, this meeting is in circumstances of great inequality. Nevertheless, the identities of both coloniser and colonised are shaped through their interactions, and this shaping continues in the postcolonial experience. In this issue of Borderlands the essays all share a common concern with identity. Moreover, in diverse ways all the essays are founded in issues of marginalisation, power and (post)colonialism.

The full article is available as a PDF document: click here.

© borderlands ejournal 2010