There is no edge: unveiling the coloniality of power in Ntozake Shange's Poetry

Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis of Ntozake Shange's "Bocas: A Daughter's Geography" centered on the uses of place in the poem. It looks closely into the processes by means of which the poem suggests a construction of the self based on an articulation between geopolitics and ancestry. It also tries to articulate sociologist Aníbal Quijano's concept of coloniality of power to the geopolitics of affects the poem builds on.