Ocean Imaginaries in Warsan Shire’s Afro-Diasporic Poetry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9400913 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jennifer Leetsch (0000-0002-5382-5124, University of Würzburg, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 80-95 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the African Literature Association (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2167-4736 • E-ISSN: 2167-4744 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/21674736.2019.1594910 |
| OpenAlex | W2938763197 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 14 |
The following article posits the ocean as a connective, affective space. This notion of oceanic relationality lends itself to analyses of the work of Somalian-British poet Warsan Shire. In her work, we can find renditions of specifically located transoceanic trajectories which reach across various different water spaces: her poems connect the East African diaspora via the Northern Indian Ocean first to Northern Africa and the Middle East and from there via the Mediterranean to Europe. Shire’s poetry can thus be placed within a triadic structure as it forcefully speaks towards three different water spaces: the Indian Ocean; the Mediterranean; and, less directly so, the Black Atlantic. The simultaneously violent and transformative potential of these three water spaces take root in her oceanic imaginaries and thus the ocean emerges as a troubled but enabling site of multiple exchanges. I argue that Shire’s poetry constitutes the ocean not only as a deathly space, but also as generative: it offers up the possibilities of passage and movement, however dangerous they may be
Alterity · Archaeology · Art · Climatology · Diaspora · Epistemology · Forcing (mathematics · Geography · Indian ocean · Literature · Poetry · Shire · Sociology · Transformative learning · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Travel Writing and Literature · Geology · Oceanography
On digital crossings in Europe
The Indian Ocean in World History
The Graves of TarimGenealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean
Africa and the Black Atlantic
Rewriting the African diaspora
Migrating modernities in the Mediterranean
Oceanic Corpo-Graphies, Refugee Bodies and the Making and Unmaking of Waters
The Black Atlantic Meets the Indian Ocean
| Citations per year | 1.29 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2023 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |