Identidade e alteridade em Remembering babylon (1993), de David Malouf

Abstract

An analysis of the identity and alterity of the characters in the novel Remembering Babylon (1993) by David Malouf is provided. The identity formation of the colonizers hailing from the Scottish communities which settled in the northeast of the Australian continent is investigated, with a special focus on the culturally hybrid subject Gemmy. The hybridization and the multiculturalism are also analyzed and the peculiarities caused by the social context and by the protagonist's hybrid condition are forwarded for investigation. Current research aims at examining the theories on identity and alterity which may form the basis for an analysis of the hierarchical situations emerging during the initial years of Australia´s colonization period fictionalized in the novel. The theories by Hall, Said, Bhabha, Memmi, Sidekun and others foreground the concepts of identity, alterity, otherness and hybridization. Results show that when Australian colonization adopted the presupposition of European superiority, it failed in understanding and putting into practice a policy of hybridization. Denying the natives' rights and ethnic contribution and shunning all cultural hybridity left marks which are still present in the ethnic and cultural configuration of current Australian society.