Situating itself at an intersection where literature and (post)colonial history, botany and horticulture are meaningfully conflated, Jamaica Kincaid’s "My Garden (Book):" raises compelling questions about place and identity, ontological relations with the environment and the alienating effects of dispossession or enforced transplantation. Besides testifying to her absorbing passion for botany and her creation of a thriving garden in Vermont, Kincaid’s idiosyncratic work takes us well beyond the generic bounds of gardening handbooks. This article sheds light on the engaging dialectic through which she offers insights into a systematic kind of botanical violence and plant diaspora which, during the history of Western imperialism, participated in an economically-driven, global re-mapping of the natural world and a purposeful domestication of the exotic. Garden culture, Kincaid argues, often joins ranks with a politics of gardening and plant-collecting that has had a powerful impact on both landscape architecture and national mythographies.

Collocandosi ad un significativo crocevia tra letteratura e storia (post)coloniale, botanica e orticoltura, "My Garden (Book):" di Jamaica Kincaid solleva importanti questioni inerenti ai temi del luogo e dell’identità, delle relazioni ontologiche con l’ambiente e degli effetti alienanti dell’espropriazione o della trasmigrazione coatta. Oltre a testimoniare la passione di Kincaid per la botanica e la sua creazione di un fiorente giardino nel Vermont, questo testo idiosincratico ci conduce ben oltre i confini tipologici del manuale di giardinaggio. Il mio articolo intende far luce sulle complesse sfaccettature del percorso dialettico attraverso il quale l’autrice indaga una forma sistematica di violenza botanica e diaspora vegetale che, nella storia dell’imperialismo occidentale, si è sviluppata parallelamente ad una ri-mappatura degli ecosistemi naturali, su cui hanno influito fattori economici e la volontà di addomesticare l’esotico. La cultura del verde, sostiene Kincaid, stringe spesso un’alleanza con una politica del giardinaggio e del collezionismo botanico che esercita un forte impatto sia sull’architettura del paesaggio, sia sulle mitografie nazionali.

"There is no order in my garden": The Itineraries of Being and Meaning in Jamaica Kincaid's "My Garden (Book):"

Giovannelli L.
2019-01-01

Abstract

Situating itself at an intersection where literature and (post)colonial history, botany and horticulture are meaningfully conflated, Jamaica Kincaid’s "My Garden (Book):" raises compelling questions about place and identity, ontological relations with the environment and the alienating effects of dispossession or enforced transplantation. Besides testifying to her absorbing passion for botany and her creation of a thriving garden in Vermont, Kincaid’s idiosyncratic work takes us well beyond the generic bounds of gardening handbooks. This article sheds light on the engaging dialectic through which she offers insights into a systematic kind of botanical violence and plant diaspora which, during the history of Western imperialism, participated in an economically-driven, global re-mapping of the natural world and a purposeful domestication of the exotic. Garden culture, Kincaid argues, often joins ranks with a politics of gardening and plant-collecting that has had a powerful impact on both landscape architecture and national mythographies.
2019
Giovannelli, L.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11568/1018006
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