1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910255079003321

Autore

Kennedy Melissa

Titolo

Narratives of Inequality : Postcolonial Literary Economics / / by Melissa Kennedy

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2017

ISBN

9783319599571

3319599577

Edizione

[1st ed. 2017.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (IX, 229 p.)

Collana

New Comparisons in World Literature, , 2634-6109

Disciplina

809

Soggetti

Literature

Comparative literature

Literature, Modern - 20th century

Literature, Modern - 21st century

World Literature

Comparative Literature

Contemporary Literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction -- 2. Colonial Capitalism -- 3. Neocolonialism -- 4. Global Neoliberalism -- 5. Conclusion -- Works Cited -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

This book reveals the economic motivations underpinning colonial, neocolonial and neoliberal eras of global capitalism that are represented in critiques of inequality in postcolonial fiction. Today's economic inequality, suffered disproportionately by indigenous and minority groups of postcolonial societies in both developed and developing countries, is a direct outcome of the colonial-era imposition of capitalist structures and practices. The longue durée, world-systems approach in this study reveals repeating patterns and trends in the mechanics of capitalism that create and maintain inequality. As well as this, it reveals the social and cultural beliefs and practices that justify and support inequality, yet equally which resist and condemn it. Through analysis of narrative representations of wealth accumulation



and ownership, structures of internal inequality between the rich and the poor within cultural communities, and the psychology of capitalism that engenders particular emotions and behaviour, this study brings postcolonial literary economics to the neoliberal debate, arguing for the important contribution of the imaginary to the pressing issue of economic inequality and its solutions.