History, Memory, and Trauma in Postcolonial Travel Writing

Abstract

The postcolonial always involves an encounter with the past, and that encounter is perhaps nowhere more compelling than in travel writing. At stake in this encounter is the question of how the past inheres within the present, and how, in travel writing, the traveler, travelee, and reader are affected by and implicated in the persistence of the past. At its worst, postcolonial travel writing exploits nostalgic and sentimental versions of the past that legitimize the history of colonialism and reinforce social div­isions that underlie the contemporary global order. Yet at its best, postco­lonial travel writing bears witness to the enduring legacies of the past in ways that trouble contemporary certainties, and it performs the valuable political and moral work of reckoning with the past in the name of a just future.