“There and Elsewhere”: The Land Down Under and the World-Archipelago

This article asks what occurs when Glissant’s literary œuvre is taken up and reshaped by Aboriginal artists and writers in Australia? I argue that these intertextual engagements fundamentally transform Glissant’s concepts, while also illuminating aspects of Glissant’s body of work that have hitherto been obscured, such as a carefully defined relationship to Indigeneity. If we understand the global circulation of Caribbean concepts to be interconnected with representations of Indigenous peoples, a more equitable form of cross-colonial solidarity may be established between the two regions. From this perspective, Glissant’s grasp of Aboriginal Australia may be critically productive and mutually necessary, opening up a discursive and epistemological space for a future relationship to be forged on its own terms.