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Ghosts of the plantation : sugar, narrative energetics and gothic ecologies in Fiji
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Vandertop, Caitlin (2020) Ghosts of the plantation : sugar, narrative energetics and gothic ecologies in Fiji. Green Letters : Studies in Ecocriticism, 24 (2). pp. 155-168. doi:10.1080/14688417.2020.1772847 ISSN 1468-8417.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2020.1772847
Abstract
This article examines gothic representations of the sugarcane plantation in literature from Fiji. Focusing on Indo-Fijian texts, including Totaram Sanadhya’s ‘The Story of the Haunted Line’ (1922) and Subramani’s The Fantasy Eaters (1988), it shows how ghostly encounters and uncanny returns evoke not only the haunting memories of indenture but also the violent rushes and energy-depleting crashes generated by sugar. As a ‘vampire crop’, sugar is seen to exacerbate the slow violence of food insecurity, the threat of mosquito-borne disease, the gendered exhaustion of fertility and the speculative organisation of life into sources of ‘cheap energy’. In imagining sugar’s gothic ecologies, the texts ground human subjects within the multispecies work/energy system of the plantation, anticipating the ‘ghosts’ of its social, economic and environmental legacies.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania | ||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > English and Comparative Literary Studies | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Fiji -- Fiction, Gothic revival (Literature) -- Fiji, Plantations -- Fiji, Fiji -- Social life and customs, Sugar trade -- Fiji -- History, Plantation life -- Fiji | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Green Letters : Studies in Ecocriticism | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 1468-8417 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 2020 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 24 | ||||||||
| Number: | 2 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 155-168 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1080/14688417.2020.1772847 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Green Letters on 09/06/2020, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14688417.2020.1772847 | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 16 January 2020 | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 9 December 2021 | ||||||||
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