The Library
Digging holes, excavating the present, mining the future : extractivism, time, and memory in Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s and Sammy Baloji’s works
Tools
Fraiture, Pierre-Philippe (2024) Digging holes, excavating the present, mining the future : extractivism, time, and memory in Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s and Sammy Baloji’s works. Modern & Contemporary France . pp. 1-21. doi:10.1080/09639489.2023.2244906 ISSN 0963-9489.
|
PDF
Digging holes excavating the present mining the future extractivism time and memory in Fiston Mwanza Mujila s and Sammy Baloji s works.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (744Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09639489.2023.2244906
Abstract
This article explores the links between creative imagination and extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This question has an undeniable memorial dimension, for extraction, as a crucial point of entry into Congolese historical consciousness, allows for a multi-perspectivist examination of the way in which the memory of the past has been archived, experienced, and (mis)interpreted. As a key term to understand Congo’s geopolitical position since colonial times, extraction offers a rich array of tropes and ideas to assess culture from the DRC and the Congolese diaspora. First, I reflect on the notions of extraction and extractivism; secondly, I analyse how they form the basis of Sammy Baloji's multi-media work in Mémoire (2006) and Mémoire/Kolwezi (2014); then, I turn to La Danse du vilain (2020) and Tram 83 (2014) by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, first to assess how extraction is employed in these novels, then to conduct a reflection on ‘necropolitics’, and reveal little-known aspects of diamond digging during the Mobutu era. I will also show that Baloji’s and Mujila’s creative trajectories have been enriched by dialogues with Filip De Boeck, the Belgian social anthropologist and specialist of the DRC.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Subjects: | P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0441 Literary History P Language and Literature > PQ Romance literatures |
||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures | ||||||||
SWORD Depositor: | Library Publications Router | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Congolese (Democratic Republic) fiction (French) -- 21st century, Mwanza Mujila, Fiston,1981- -- Criticism and interpretation, Baloji, Sammy -- Criticism and interpretation, Language and culture -- Congo (Democratic Republic) , Mineral industries -- Congo (Democratic Republic) , Time in literature , Memory in literature | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Modern & Contemporary France | ||||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0963-9489 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 2024 | ||||||||
Dates: |
|
||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 1-21 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1080/09639489.2023.2244906 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 31 October 2023 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 31 October 2023 | ||||||||
Related URLs: |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year