Reterritorialization in A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid: A Postcolonial Eco-Critical Study

This article intends to understand how the postcolonial ecocritical writers attempt to reterritorialize their land, its history, and its culture by underscoring the hazards of tourism. In the wake of capitalism, tourism has increased environmental racism and environmental injustice encountered by people of marginalized communities. For this study, we have analyzed a creative nonfiction work A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid in the light of postcolonial ecocritical theory presented by Donelle N. Dreese. This literary theory deals with the exploitation of land, its resources, its environment, and its people in the context of ecocriticism and postcolonialism. Dreese’s subdivision of the concept of reterritorialization into mythic, psychic, and environmental reterritorialization has been applied on A Small Place. The article explores how Kincaid has reterritorialized her ancestral homeland Antigua by recording the oppressive colonial past of the land that has been ravaged under imperial rule by exploitation of the natural resources (plantations) and subjugation of the human resources (slavery). She has observed that under the influence of capitalism, her homeland is currently facing a new form of colonization in the name of tourism industry that is actually promoting new ways of foreign occupation of the land, enslavement of the local people, and environmental racism. The article concludes by drawing attention toward tourism, which can turn into neo-colonization under the clutches of capitalism and corrupt leadership. We attempt to underscore that there is a dire need of continuous process of planning and management by the local authorities to minimize the problems faced by the natives and to make tourism industry environment friendly.