The culture of erosion
Settler colonialism, geological agency, and New Zealand literature, 1930s–1950s
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9002145 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Philip Steer (0000-0002-0728-374X, Massey University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 610-626 |
| Publication date | 2021-07-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-9894 • E-ISSN: 1741-6442 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00219894211022716 |
| OpenAlex | W3184532915 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 18 |
The Pākehā (settler) writing that flourished in New Zealand in the middle decades of the twentieth century is often seen as an attempt to ground settler culture in the precolonial earth. Produced at a time when erosion was seen as a pressing national and global environmental crisis, however, this essay argues New Zealand literary culture in fact was suffused with awareness of settlement’s profoundly damaged landscape. Returning to prominent critical statements, prose, and poetry from this period — notably by Allen Curnow, Charles Brasch, Monte Holcroft, and Frank Sargeson — reveals that imagery of erosion was central to imagining the nature and impact of settlement in geological terms. In contrast to the antagonistic relationship with nature plotted in these texts, writers such as Ursula Bethell and Herbert Guthrie-Smith offered alternative possibilities for environmental thought through models of geological understanding that drew on religious vocabularies and Māori thought. At the broadest level, focusing on settler literature produced in a moment of environmental crisis framed in geological terms has the potential to illuminate critical responses to the challenges posed by the Anthropocene
Agency (philosophy · Anthropocene · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Environmental ethics · Literature · Poetry · Settlement (finance · Social science · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · History · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Philosophy
Man and nature; or, Physical geography as modified by human action
Dirt
George Perkins Marsh
Racy of the Soil
New Zealand in the Making
Nations, states and homelands
Environmental Anxiety in New Zealand, 1840-1941
Flying Fox and Drifting Sand
Soil Erosion in Australia and New Zealand
Tutira
Introduction
Aotearoa/New Zealand
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |