Moffat, Rachel (2010) Perspectives on Africa in Travel Writing: Representations of Ethiopia, Kenya, Republic of Congo and South Africa, 1930–2000
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Moffat, Rachel (2010) Perspectives on Africa in travel writing: representations of Ethiopia, Kenya, Republic of Congo and South Africa, 1930–2000. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1639/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Perspectives on Africa in Travel Writing: Representations of Ethiopia, Kenya, Republic of Congo and South Africa, 1930–2000 Rachel Heidi Moffat Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of PhD Department of English Literature Faculty of Arts University of Glasgow © Rachel Moffat 2009 Abstract This thesis establishes contexts for the interrogation of modern travel narratives about African countries. The nineteenth century saw significant advances in travel in Africa‘s interior. For the first time much of Africa was revealed to a Western audience through the reports of explorers and other travellers. My thesis focuses on more recent representations of African countries, discussing changes in travel writing in the twentieth century, from 1930–2000. This thesis studies key twentieth-century representations of four African countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, the Republic of Congo and South Africa. I interrogate Western constructions, with a specific focus on narratives by Evelyn Waugh, Wilfred Thesiger, Dervla Murphy and Redmond O‘Hanlon. Narratives of South Africa by Laurens van der Post, Noni Jabavu and Dan Jacobson also provide important insights into African self- construction in travel writing, which is, as yet, an under-developed genre in African literature. I begin by sketching a historical framework of the Western idea of Africa which, most recently, has been characterised by nineteenth-century interpretations of the Dark Continent. The process of decolonisation and the emergence of postcolonial discourses have challenged these constructions. An analysis of travel narratives from 1930–2000 reveals a variety of responses to the growing distaste for older, colonial attitudes. Increasingly, Western travellers seek both to create culturally relevant Africas and to subvert older Western creations. Travel writers seek to re-present destinations, to examine and modify existing discourses. There are fewer texts of exploration, but many writers now travel in order to write, looking for new ways to re-imagine and, thereby, rediscover what is already known. Developments in modern thought influence writers‘ self-representations, as well as their presentations of the Other. Twentieth-century women construct themselves according to new social constructions of femininity, no longer juxtaposing hardiness with more traditional feminine traits, but proving that their capability and endurance as travellers equals that of men. The traveller is always central to the narrative and so it is always important to interrogate the writer‘s self-presentation. Trends in twentieth-century travel narratives reveal an increasingly personal focus; this can bring a unique quality to the account, but also raises questions of authenticity. Foregrounding the creative process of producing a travel narrative reveals the agendas which inform self-presentation. This thesis points towards the potential for much further study on the continual process of re-presenting Africa but, also, the contextualisation of Western travel narratives continually points up the lack of African self-representation in travel writing. There has been little response from Africans to the long history of Western travellers imagining Africa; future dialogues with African texts of self-exploration and self-representation will, potentially, reveal new complexities, bringing greater depth and diversity to the discourses already in place. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One 23 Representations of Africa Chapter Two 50 Postcolonialism Chapter Three 72 Gender and Genre Chapter Four 98 Constructing Travel Narratives Chapter Five 124 Ethiopia: Evelyn Waugh, Wilfred Thesiger, Dervla Murphy Chapter Six 153 My Kenya Days: Wilfred Thesiger Chapter Seven 181 The Republic of Congo: Redmond O‘Hanlon Chapter Eight 209 South Africa: Laurens van der Post, Noni Jabavu, Dan Jacobson, Dervla Murphy Conclusion 241 Bibliography 247 Acknowledgements I am very grateful to my supervisor, Dorothy McMillan, for her valuable and dedicated support and advice over five years. Many thanks to Dervla Murphy, who so kindly agreed to give me an interview in 2005; it has been a very valuable source for this thesis. Willy Maley, Nigel Leask and Alison Chapman have all spent time looking through my work at various stages, which has been much appreciated. I am grateful for help received from the staff, both at the University of Glasgow Library and the National Library of Scotland. Maureen McCue has offered valuable advice on my work; Garnette Oluoch-Olunya and Binyavanga Wainaina both provided very useful information. I am particularly grateful for the support of my family throughout this thesis and for the financial help they have given. Author’s Declaration I declare that, except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, that this dissertation is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree at the University of Glasgow or any other institution. Signature_____________________________________ Printed name Rachel Moffat Abbreviations ANC African National Congress AWB Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging CJ Congo Journey DD The Danakil Diary DiC Drawn in Colour: African Contrasts EE The Electronic Elephant EwM In Ethiopia with a Mule HH The Heart of the Hunter HN Historia Naturalis KAU Kenya African Union LRB London Review of Books LWK Lost World of the Kalahari MKD My Kenya Days MSA Mouvement Socialiste Africaine NFD Northern Frontier District ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography OP The Ochre People: Scenes from a South African Life PCT Parti Congolais du Travail RDA Rassemblement Démocratique Africain RGS Royal Geographical Society SfL South from the Limpopo TLS Times Literary Supplement UDDIA Union Démocratique pour la Défense des Interêts Africain WA Waugh Abroad: Collected Travel Writing 1 Introduction Travel writing is a complex genre blending autobiography and reportage, offering important insights not merely into the places visited but also into the perspectives of the writers themselves and, by extension, into their cultural contexts. Travel writing has long been important for understanding the West‘s relationship with non-Western countries and cultures. Conversely, changing attitudes to other people and places affect travel writing so there is an ongoing reciprocal adjustment in vision. Nevertheless in the past travel writing has sometimes been regarded as an ‗essentially frivolous‘ genre which most academics ‗move beyond […] [in order] to focus on the canonized writers‘.1 More recently, as Tim Youngs observes, ‗travel writing studies is now in fashion‘,2 having ‗emerged as a key theme for the humanities and social sciences‘.3 This research, as Youngs and Peter Hulme point out, crosses disciplinary boundaries: The academic disciplines of literature, history, geography, and anthropology have all overcome their previous reluctance to take travel writing seriously and have begun to produce a body of interdisciplinary criticism which will allow the full complexity of the genre to be appreciated.4 Nor is it quite true that travel writing was previously neglected: Bernard Mergen, reviewing The Cambridge Companion sympathetically, nevertheless argues that ‗the importance of travel writing in creating the image of the New World has long been recognized‘ by American scholars.5 In this way, travel writing has made an important contribution to national and cultural self-definition. And it is now universally understood as a means of representing and understanding what is foreign and Other and consequently, of course, assisting self-perception and self-definition. 1 Patrick Holland and Graham Huggan, Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2000), pp.vii–viii. 2 Tim Youngs, ‗Where Are We Going? Cross-border Approaches to Travel Writing‘ in Perspectives on Travel Writing, ed. by Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp.167–180 (p.171). 3 Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs, ‗Introduction‘ in The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, ed. by Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp.1–13 (p.1). 4 Hulme and Youngs, p.1. 5 Bernard Mergen, ‗The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, Book Review‘, American Studies International, 41, no.3 (2003), 128–130 (p.128). 2 It remains the case, however, that there is no established ‗tradition of a critical attention to travel writing‘.6 Certain areas have been scrutinised more closely than others: the nineteenth century, for example, has been described as the golden age of travel writing because so many texts were produced by Western men and women. This era has received