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

在所有形式的媒体中，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。出版业的“多样性倡议”越来越多，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发挥作用，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年期间，在英国YA市场上发表的作者中，只有8%是BAME。这种多样性的缺乏在幻想类型中尤为明显。罗森（2010）发现，只有9%的最畅销的YA幻想小说包含“多样化”的人物，（她的定义包括种族，残疾和性取向）。因此，尽管出版环境有所改善，但这是轻微的，读者主要是访问以特定角度展示BAME角色的小说，其中很多故事都集中在种族，后殖民主义和难民（大胆，2019）。这一点在安吉·托马斯的《你给予的仇恨》（2017）等小说的成功中显而易见。正如Saha（2018）所主张的那样，“不是尽管如此，而是因为多样性倡议，种族化少数群体的代表性继续减少到少数几个可识别的比喻，几乎没有变化。“重要的是，在英国YA小说中，特别是在幻想类型中，多样性的增加是很重要的，因为这种模式是一种重要的手段，通过这种方式，读者可以'被赋予权力，并获得一种超越感，这种超越感在真实的世界中是难以捉摸的'（托马斯，2019）。《雅幻想》的成功说明了人们对与现实世界的压迫有关的奇幻故事的兴趣和价值。其中一个例子是Tomi Adeyemi的《血与骨的孩子》（2018），这是一部非常成功的小说，作者致力于被美国警察杀害的年轻黑人。尽管有这样的成功故事，但赋予黑人读者和人物权力的幻想在英国和美国出版业中仍占少数。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。我的术语“专属空间”不仅指的是有色人种作家在出版幻想作品中的代表性不足，而且还指的是这种类型植根于殖民叙事和意识形态的想法。Nalo Hopkinson（2004）讨论了基于殖民意识形态的幻想类型写作的困难，这种意识形态是“其他”有色人种，集中了白色的欧洲世界观，这表明她因为是一个写科幻小说的黑人女性而受到“怀疑”。然而，她认为，尽管“在我手中，马萨的工具不会拆除马萨的房子”，但她可以用这些工具“进行大规模的翻修，并为我建造一座自己的房子”（霍普金森，2004年）。这个革新的想法是我在读博士时发展起来的。结合批判性和创造性，我研究幻想类型，并寻找方法来“翻新”预先存在的比喻和故事模式，以“建立我自己的房子”。在YA幻想中，有一些关于多样性问题的批判性调查。E. E.例如，托马斯研究了流行的YA文本和媒体中黑人“他者”的表现，（2019）和Ytasha L。沃马克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