Marginality and Liminality in Tara Sullivan’s Golden Boy

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Marginality and Liminality in Tara Sullivan’s Golden Boy "
Mpale Yvonne Mwansasu Silkiluwasha

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1083683
Doc. No	:	LA127312
Call No	:	‭10.1163/26836408-15020035‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Mpale Yvonne Mwansasu Silkiluwasha
Title & Author	:	Marginality and Liminality in Tara Sullivan’s Golden Boy [Article]\ Mpale Yvonne Mwansasu Silkiluwasha
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	Utafiti
Date	:	2020
Volume/ Issue Number	:	15/2
Page No	:	294–313
Abstract	:	In Tara Sullivan’s Golden Boy, the protagonist Habo is a young adult with albinism who struggles and eventually succeeds in navigating his multiple marginal spaces before eventually finding his position in society. Employing Victor Turner’s concept of liminality, I adopt a postcolonial lens to scrutinize in greater depth than literary critics have so far revealed the positive aspects of the marginal space occupied by Habo in virtue of the layered complexity of his social geography. Because his whole society is located in the global South, this disabled young adult faces a variety of marginalisations. Rather than an end point, the multiple margins traversed by Habo become for him a liminal space. Margins serve as a threshold for this teenager to discover and establish his position in his society. I deviate from Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s theorising about disability as a social construct, since her analysis overlooks the brute fact that Habo’s albinism is a disability which constitutes a constant life threat. The disambiguation of marginality and liminality argued here is particularly important to maintain when critiquing narratives that depict the life experience of protagonists overcoming the very real-world challenges encountered at the margins of the global economic order. In Tara Sullivan’s Golden Boy, the protagonist Habo is a young adult with albinism who struggles and eventually succeeds in navigating his multiple marginal spaces before eventually finding his position in society. Employing Victor Turner’s concept of liminality, I adopt a postcolonial lens to scrutinize in greater depth than literary critics have so far revealed the positive aspects of the marginal space occupied by Habo in virtue of the layered complexity of his social geography. Because his whole society is located in the global South, this disabled young adult faces a variety of marginalisations. Rather than an end point, the multiple margins traversed by Habo become for him a liminal space. Margins serve as a threshold for this teenager to discover and establish his position in his society. I deviate from Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s theorising about disability as a social construct, since her analysis overlooks the brute fact that Habo’s albinism is a disability which constitutes a constant life threat. The disambiguation of marginality and liminality argued here is particularly important to maintain when critiquing narratives that depict the life experience of protagonists overcoming the very real-world challenges encountered at the margins of the global economic order.
Descriptor	:	disability
Descriptor	:	liminality
Descriptor	:	marginality
Descriptor	:	postcolonial identities
Descriptor	:	Tanzanian young adult literature
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/26836408-15020035‬