Author: Olga Romero Mestas

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

The political, social, racial, and epistemological effects of the long-term ideologies encompassing empire, colonialism, and post-coloniality still generate conflicted discourses today. However, to understand the root of this impact, it is necessary to revisit the origins of resistance and identity within diverse cultural and environmental regions in the late colonies of the Spanish empire. This dissertation establishes these sources of interest and their effects on the cultural evolution of the imperial archipelagos. The relevance of the present work lies in the validity of these resistance mechanisms and their applications to events currently ongoing in the postcolonial context. The dissertation subscribes to the central proposition of colonial and transatlantic studies regarding the perpetuation of colonial structures after the independence and how what would become postcolonial mechanisms of domination were established and tested in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The research ́s approach is also informed by an interdisciplinary focus and a comparative methodology. Ecocritical theory, regional studies, discourse analysis, and historiography shape the theoretical framework. The research addresses the mechanisms for resisting the Spanish empire in the 19th century, in the Caribbean and Philippines. While working with Caribbean and Filipino writers such as Gaspar Betancourt Cisneros, Felipe Poey, Francisco Javier Angulo Guridi, Manuel Alonso, José Felipe del Pan and José Rizal, a commonality amongst resistance mechanisms emerged. The dissertation proposes a new concept to frame these mechanisms, "regions of resistance", and elucidates how such definition may explain literary and social phenomena that transcend geographical or identity boundaries. In the first chapter, the dissertation explores how a second cultural "nature" was established atop nature, and how the environmental concern to found common laws towards all regarding natural resources was also an effective strategy to combat the predatory ethos of land domination, in the work of Betancourt Cisneros. The writers studied in this research started redefining the relationship with the land to resist plantation culture and redefine the national identity; thus, the natural regions became new forms of Motherland. The second chapter focuses on the regions of resistance found in literary work: it explores the constructs associated with colonial discourse and how it is deconstructed and restructured by the colonial subject to displace meanings in the discursive signs associated with coloniality and oppression. In Caribbean and Filipino literature, the images of the slave, the indigenous, and the peasants are transformed and manipulated as international political disturbances and economic needs in their evolution induce a change in the perception of slavery and productive forces. Another changing sign is that of "progress". Writers reconceptualize the sign to differentiate their proposals for the sociopolitical and cultural transformation and emancipation, from the lack of such viable proposals coming from the political centers in Spain and the overseas elites. Furthermore, in the third chapter, a new region of resistance is defined: how the informal network of communication and social actions established around fraternal associations allowed the colonial subject to challenge domination. The chapter presents examples of the informal networks in the works of Heredia, Betancourt Cisneros, the Guridi brothers (Francisco y Alejandro), and José Rizal. The social relations established through secrecy-based forms of association resulted in collaboration with freemasons and members of other secret political societies in several regions, beyond borders, and these regions of resistance had a prominent role in the process of shaping a civil society committed to the independence, which involved fomenting culture, rights on educational and civic projects.