폐쇄적 횡단, 정체된 흐름

The Enclosed Crossing: Geopolitical Meaning in Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist.

While dealing with the work of the internationally acclaimed South African writer, Nadine Gordimer, this study re-examines the significance of “crossing” or “transversality,” which becomes one of the most controversial terms in recent cultural studies. For a study of the conflation of the spatial and the political, it is not surprising to turn to the South African situation in that the notorious apartheid of the country represents an extreme example of the territorialization of power. Gordimer’s Booker Prize-winning novel, The Conservationist, describes how the protagonist Mehring who claims to be a conservationist of the land ultimately fails to preserve the place; instead, he witnesses that the unidentified black body found and buried again on his farm re-emerges claiming its right over the land. Through the novel, Gordimer shows the way in which the spatial is inextricably entangled with the socio-political, asserting the politics of place. Calling into question the mere celebration of transversality, this study argues that the space of crossing in the novel is not the in-between space of liberation and transaction that has often been endorsed in this globalized and borderless world; rather, I suggest, the space of crossing is so restricted and closed that it ultimately contributes to reproducing the current oppressive system of power.