Whitewashing, White Supremacy and White Saviours: Reading Young Adult Fantasy

在各种形式的媒体中，多样化的代表性变得越来越重要，特别是在“黑人的命也是命”运动的背景下。出版业中出现了越来越多的“多元化倡议”，公司的目标是出版更多的BAME作者和以BAME角色为特色的故事。然而，几乎没有证据表明这些举措正在起作用，事实上，有证据表明它们适得其反（Saha, 2018）。Melanie Ramadarshan Bold（2018）发现，2006年至2016年间，在英国YA市场上出版的作者中，只有8%是BAME。这种多样性的缺乏在奇幻题材中尤为明显。罗森（2010）发现，在最畅销的青少年奇幻小说中，只有9%的角色“多样化”（她的定义包括种族、残疾和性取向）。因此，尽管出版环境有了改善，但这是轻微的，读者主要是阅读从特定角度展示BAME角色的小说，许多故事都集中在种族、后殖民主义和难民上（Bold, 2019）。这一点在安吉·托马斯的《你给的仇恨》（2017）等小说的成功中显而易见。正如Saha（2018）所指出的那样，“不是因为有了多样性倡议，而是因为有了多样性倡议，对种族化的少数群体的描述继续减少到少数几个几乎没有变化的可识别的比喻。”重要的是，英国青少年小说的不同类型，尤其是奇幻类型的多样性有所增加，因为这种模式是一种重要的手段，通过这种方式，读者可以“获得在现实世界中难以捉摸的超越感”（托马斯，2019）。《YA Fantasy》的成功说明了人们对描写现实压迫的奇幻故事的兴趣和价值。托米•阿德耶米的《血与骨的孩子》（2018年）就是一个很好的例子。这是托米•阿德耶米以被美国警察杀害的年轻黑人为主题创作的小说。尽管有这样的成功故事，但在英美出版界，赋予黑人读者和角色权力的奇幻小说仍然是少数。因此，这个项目的重点是分析幻想类型，并确定为什么它仍然是一个独家空间。我所说的“专属空间”不仅指有色人种作家在奇幻小说出版中代表性不足的事实，还指这种类型根植于殖民叙事和意识形态。纳洛·霍普金森（2004）讨论了以殖民意识形态为基础的奇幻类型写作的困难，即“其他”有色人种和集中的白人、欧洲人的世界观，这表明她作为一个写科幻小说的黑人女性受到了“怀疑”。然而，她认为，虽然“在我手中，massa的工具并没有拆除massa的房子”，但她可以使用这些工具“进行大规模的翻新，并为我建造自己的房子”（Hopkinson, 2004）。这种革新的想法是我在博士期间发展起来的。结合批判性和创造性，我研究了幻想类型，并寻找“翻新”已有的比喻和故事模式的方法，以便“为我建造自己的房子”。对于青少年奇幻小说中的多样性问题，已经有了一些批判性的调查。例如，e·e·托马斯（E. E. Thomas）研究了流行的青少年文学文本和媒体中黑人“他者”的代表，（2019年），伊塔莎·l·沃马克（Ytasha L. Womack）调查了黑人创作的科幻和幻想文化

Diverse representation is becoming increasingly important within all forms of media, particularly in light of the Black Lives Matter movement. There have been increasing 'diversity initiatives' in the publishing industry, with companies aiming to publish more BAME authors and stories featuring BAME characters. However there is little to suggest that these initiatives are working, in fact there is evidence to suggest they are counterproductive (Saha, 2018). Melanie Ramadarshan Bold (2018) found that only 8% of authors published in the UK YA market between 2006 and 2016 were BAME. This lack of diversity is particularly evident in the fantasy genre. Rawson (2010) found that only 9% of best-selling YA fantasy novels contained'diverse' characters, (her definition included race, disability and sexuality). Thus, although there has been an improvement in the publishing context, it is slight and readers are mainly accessing fiction that shows BAME characters in a particular light, with a lot of the stories focused on race, post-colonialism and refugees (Bold, 2019). This is evident in the success of novels like Angie Thomas' The Hate You Give (2017). As Saha (2018) contends, 'it is not in spite of but because of diversity initiatives that representations of racialised minorities continue to be reduced to a handful of recognisable tropes with little variation.' It is important that diversity increases across genres within UK YA fiction but particularly within the fantasy genre because this mode is an important means by which readers can be 'empowered and afforded a sense of transcendence that can be elusive within the real world' (Thomas, 2019). The success of YA Fantasy illustrates the appetite for, and value of, fantastic stories that engage with real-world oppression. An example of this is The Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (2018), a highly successful novel that the author dedicates to young black people killed by American police forces. Despite such success stories, fantasies that empower black readers and characters remain in the minority in UK and US publishing. Thus, the focus of this project is to analyse the fantasy genre and establish why it is still an exclusive space. My term 'exclusive space' refers not only to the fact that authors of colour are under-represented in the publishing of fantasy but also to the idea that the genre is rooted in colonial narratives and ideologies. Nalo Hopkinson (2004) has discussed the difficulties of writing within fantastic genres grounded in colonial ideologies that 'other' people of colour and centralise a white, European view of the world, suggesting that she comes under 'suspicion' for being a black woman writing science fiction. However, she argues that although 'in my hands, massa's tools don't dismantle massa's house,' she can use those tools to 'undertake massive renovations [and] build me a house of my own' (Hopkinson, 2004). This idea of renovation is something I develop in my PhD. Combining the critical and creative, I examine the fantasy genre and look at ways to 'renovate' pre-existing tropes and story modes in order to 'build me a house of my own'. There have been some critical investigations of issues of diversity in YA fantasy. E. E. Thomas, for example, has examined representation of the black 'other' in popular YA texts and media, (2019) and Ytasha L. Womack has surveyed black-authored sci-fi and fantasy culture in