Literary and cultural (re)productions of a utopian island: Performative geographies of colonial Shamian, Guangzhou in the latter half of the 19th century

Abstract

In the second half of the 19th century, Shamian was established and developed as a colonial island enclave in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. Simultaneously, literary and cultural imaginations, depictions, and narrations of the place produced a discourse of Shamian as a utopian island: geographically insular and bounded, environmentally beautiful and peaceful, socially exclusive and harmonious, and technologically progressive and advantageous. This paper examines contemporaneous (predominantly English) literary and cultural representations of Shamian as a colonial utopia and their interrelations with the island’s spatial formation and evolution. These texts (primarily written and pictorial descriptive, non-fictional accounts) reflected the spatial reality but also promoted spatial practices that reinforced the physical utopian island. This process exemplifies the theories of performative geographies in island studies and intertextuality in geocriticism, showing how a place’s spatial representations and reality are mutually constructed. Adopting a conceptual model of intertextual performative geographies, this paper investigates the dynamic interplay of these literary and cultural texts with the spatial reality, arguing that literary and cultural representations of Shamian (re)produced the colonial enclave as a utopian island, both conceptually and practically.

The myth of the Others: Western representations of the Dan people and boat clusters in the island city of Guangzhou, China (1842–1900)

“…After the Thirteen Factories district burned down in 1856, Shamian Island was selected as the new center for the Western presence in Guangzhou, with a few other nearshore sites developed as well. Shamian gradually became a hub of Western social, economic, and political activities as well as the site of first disembarkation for most Western visitors and new residents (Lin and Su 2022). The sociospatial relationship between Westerners and the Dan changed accordingly.…”

“…1). This geography has had a substantial influence on urban development in various parts of the Pearl River Delta (Lin and Su 2022;Sheng et al 2017;Su 2017). Changing representations of island, water, and urban space in the Pearl River Delta have conditioned how people (both Chinese and foreigners) have interacted with these spaces (Su and Grydehøj 2022).…”

“…51-53;Zhang 2008, p. 23). In light of the limited terrestrial resources in southeastern China, these discourses constructed an ideological environment for justifying discrimination, othering, and social exclusion, in which the Dan were unable to produce texts or participate in mainstream public discourse (He 2005, p. 50;Lin and Su 2022;Zhang and Liu 2018, pp. 144-146;Zhang 2008, p. 25).…”

Indigenous Island Autonomy and Special Economic Zone Status: Developmental tensions of Jeju Free International City, South Korea

“…Boundedness, remoteness, and isolation are all relational characteristics: Island distinction can only be perceived in relation to other places (other islands or mainlands). Island coastlines in a sense naturalise territorialisation (Farinelli, 2021;Johnson, 2021;McGrath, 2021;Lin & Su, 2022) (Nimführ & Meloni, 2021;Grydehøj, 2018b). These same spatial attributes can also cause an elision of internal differences: If islands are supposed to be distinct from the mainland, there is also a sense in which people resist the idea of islands (or sets of islands that have been mentally grouped together into archipelagos) possessing highly disparate cultures.…”

Interaction between islands and special economic zones: Spatial processes of containment and exclusion

“…Regardless of absolute measures of separation, relative island characteristics foster divergence through social processes. For example, connection through, separation by, and interaction with water condition how islanders see themselves and engage with outside influences (Fleury & Hayward, 2021; Lei, 2021; Lin & Su, 2022; Mahajan, 2021; Main et al, 2021). The widespread idea that islands are exceptional encourages islanders and mainlanders to accentuate difference (Messana, 2021; Nadarajah et al, 2022; Nimführ & Meloni, 2021), which enhances the attractiveness of visiting, living on, mythologising and thinking with islands (Chandler & Pugh, 2021; Dang, 2021; Ding et al, 2022; Johnson, 2021; Xiao & Chen, 2022).…”