The Other Alongside: Suburban Mangroves and the Postcolonial Swampy Gothic

The Other Alongside: Suburban Mangroves and the Postcolonial Swampy Gothic

This chapter makes a material ecocritical analysis of the mangroves that edge the Cooks River in suburban Sydney, finding their Gothic presence troubles the colonial values expressed in the history of the river. After explaining the material ecocritical perspective of the analysis and introducing the troubled histories of the river and its mangroves, the chapter examines the moral geography written by colonial infrastructures. For those of us dwelling within an extensive moral geography, the experiences and values of those who have been excluded and muted are difficult to access. Australian cultural responses to colonial violence and repression have frequently turned to the Gothic. The chapter considers how Gothic features suggested by these mangroves; their dark and slimy appearance, their toxic mutability, their more-than-human agency, their capacity to generate life from death, contribute to their power to challenge colonial values. Michel Serres’s concept of the parasite, the inevitable other alongside that threatens security and with whom a relationship must be carefully negotiated and tended, provides an interpretive framework for the analysis.

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