Over-representing Ireland: Interracial Affect in Contemporary Irish Fiction

• Grant number: 24/21633-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: May 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Modern Foreign Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Laura Patricia Zuntini de Izarra
• Grantee: Victor Augusto da Cruz Pacheco
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

With the increased presence of black bodies in the Republic of Ireland and the changes in immigration and citizenship laws implemented since the late 1990s, this research aims to analyse the representation of interracial relationships between white and black people in contemporary Irish fiction. The research hypothesis is that contemporary Ireland has reformulated its colonial configuration to follow modern racial grammar (Silva, 2016), i.e. the division of the world between humans and non-humans, whites and non-whites, as a means of adjudicating and authorising interracial relations (King-O'Riain, 2021) through the circulation of affect. By considering interracial relations, the research will reflect on how literature, following Sylvia Wynter (2003), over-represents Ireland as always already a white nation. Literary works are privileged places where affects circulate and increase their affective and racialising value (either by maintaining whiteness or anti-blackness) through literary form, plot, style, and genre. For this purpose, the theoretical movement to be performed throughout the research is to unite the areas of Irish Studies, Affective Theory, and Black Radical Thought to analyse the short stories 'Eveline' by Donal Ryan (2016), 'Infinite Landscape' by Roisín O'Donnell, 'BrownLady12345' by Melatu Okorie (2019), the novel The Green Road by Anne Enright (2015) and the autobiography Without Warning & Only Sometimes: Scenes of an Unpredictable Childhood (2022) by Kit de Waal. This research will result in a monographic study.