Living in and Traversing Cities
Place and Identity in Irene Sabatini’s The Boy Next Door
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12943291 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Syned Mthatiwa (0000-0003-0342-4637, University of Malawi, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 60-72 |
| Publication date | 2018-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Scrutiny2 (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1812-5441 • E-ISSN: 1753-5409 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/18125441.2018.1489891 |
| OpenAlex | W2904277268 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
Movement, or travel, characterises the life of Lindiwe Bishop, the main character and narrator in Irene Sabatini’s debut novel, The Boy Next Door. In this paper I examine how Lindiwe’s movements, and experiences in Zimbabwe’s major cities, Harare and Bulawayo, contribute to her construction of a city-dweller’s and a Coloured identity. I also examine how, as places, the cities are related to her identity formation. In the paper I put forward a social constructionist paradigm of Coloured identity and hold that, as places, Bulawayo and Harare play an important role in Lindiwe’s construction and maintenance of a Coloured identity as well as her identity as a city dweller. Through inhabiting and navigating Zimbabwe’s two major cities, Lindiwe inscribes herself upon these places and constructs and reifies a Coloured identity, thereby highlighting her quest to belong to a racial category and community that offer better prospects and privileges than blackness does
Aesthetics · Art · Cartography · Genealogy · Geography · Identity (music · Traverse · History · Medicine · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies · Gerontology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |