In the South Seas: Robert L. Stevenson’s Anglo-Southern Relations, or Orientalisms denied

In the history of British culture, few authors have distanced themselves from the otherising discourse that has informed its imperial master narrative. Thanks to his Polynesian works, he has been appropriately considered a sort of avant-la-lettre postcolonial author. If at that time there was an exoticism reminiscent of colonialism (Pierre Loti, Rudyard Kipling), there also was an exoticism which tried to distance itself from the colonial project and endeavoured to come to terms with alterity rather than identity. The aim of this essay is to survey his In the South Seas and see in what ways he resisted the deculturing British action, as far as sex/gender and race are concerned.