Ecotones of time and space in two works by J.M. Coetzee and Igiaba Scego

While political discourses on the current 'migratory crisis' often take the language of ecological emergency, depicting Western states as self-sufficient ecosystems put in danger by the 'vermin' of external intruders, postcolonial writing proves crucial in reimagining frontier limbos and precarious existences as the originating centres of unprecedented transformations. Drawing on biological and cultural definitions of the "ecotone" (Haraway 2007, Morrissey 2015) and on Edward Casey's notion of spaces "in-between edges" (2008), I intend to explore two different declinations of literary ecotones centred around migrant children's experiences, namely Igiaba Scego's La mia casa è dove sono [Home is where I am] (2010) and J. M. Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus (2013). The first chronicles the Scegos's diaspora from Mogadishu to Europe as well as the writer's own struggles in growing up a black Italian-born girl in 1990s Rome. The second is a dystopian fiction in which the protagonists are strangers recently arrived by boat in a posthumous dimension where all inhabitants have forgotten their past and are content with their anodyne present. Scego's memoir and Coetzee's novel provide instances of different but equally powerful literary ecotones. Whereas Coetzee's fictional text focuses on the existential and philosophical limbo of a lost child literally experiencing a new (after)life, Scego's work deals with specific objects (the home-drawn Rome-plus-Mogadishu map, Bernini's Roman sculpture of an African elephant) as objective correlatives of complex and transformative collective geographies.

当前围绕“移民危机”的政治话语常采用生态紧急状态的叙事逻辑，将西方诸国描绘为自给自足的生态系统，而外来入侵者如同“害虫”般将其置于险境。而后殖民写作则至关重要，它重新诠释了边境边缘地带与不稳定的生存境遇，将其视作前所未有的社会变革的始发中心。
本研究借鉴哈拉维（Haraway 2007）与莫里斯西（Morrissey 2015）对“生态交错带（ecotone）”的生物学与文化学定义，以及爱德华·凯西（Edward Casey 2008）提出的“边缘之间的空间”概念，旨在围绕移民儿童的生存体验，探讨文学生态交错带的两种不同变体，具体为伊贾巴·塞戈（Igiaba Scego）的《我家即吾所居》（La mia casa è dove sono，2010）与J.M.库切（J. M. Coetzee）的《耶稣的童年》（The Childhood of Jesus，2013）。
首部作品记述了塞戈从摩加迪沙迁往欧洲的流亡经历，以及作者本人作为20世纪90年代罗马出生的黑人女孩的成长困境。
第二部作品为反乌托邦小说，讲述主角们乘船抵达一个来世维度的陌生之地，当地所有居民都已忘却过往，安于平淡乏味的当下生活。
塞戈的回忆录与库切的小说共同呈现了两种虽不尽相同却同样极具冲击力的文学生态交错带案例。库切的虚构文本聚焦于一名迷失孩童在全新来世中所经历的存在主义与哲学层面的边缘境遇；而塞戈的作品则以具体物象——如手绘的罗马与摩加迪沙合一的地图、贝尔尼尼创作的罗马非洲大象雕塑——作为复杂且兼具变革性的集体地理空间的客观对应物。