The naturalist in the Garden of Eden: Science and colonial landscape in Jem Poster's Rifling Paradise (2006)

Boccardi, Mariadele

Abstract

This essay seeks to supplement an established critical tradition that reads natural history in neo-Victorian fiction from a postmodern and largely de-politicised perspective. I argue that the figure of the naturalist can be used to revisit natural history’s complicity with imperial expansion, both in its practice and in its discursive framework. By means of a close reading of Jem Poster’s Rifling Paradise (2006), I explore the ways in which natural history gives way to an ecological approach to the colonial landscape, pointing to a possible – though still problematic – alternative to a scientific (exploitative, colonial) understanding of the relationship between nature and human beings.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 30, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jun 30, 2016
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Sep 7, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 11, 2016
• Journal: Victoriographies
• Print ISSN: 2044-2416
• Electronic ISSN: 2044-2424
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 112-130
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/vic.2016.0227
• Keywords: eco-criticism, ecology, natural history, colonial landscape, pastoral, wilderness, neo-Victorian fiction, colonial discourse
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/906609
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/vic.2016.0227
• Additional Information: Additional Information : The published version of this article is available from http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/vic.2016.0227
• Contract Date: Jul 11, 2016