What it means to stay: reterritorialising the Black Atlantic in Erna Brodber's writing of the local

The emphasis on migratory subjectivities within postcolonial studies has come from many directions—Bhabha, Gilroy, Appadurai, Boyce Davies—and their convergence has created a critical practice in which diaspora studies takes centre stage. More specifically the way in which the Caribbean person is given emblematic status as the metropolitan migrant is made clear in James Clifford's declaration that ‘We are all Caribbeans now…in our urban archipelagos'. This paper examines the serious impact on the critical reception of Caribbean writings that has been made as a result of the fact that metropolitan diasporas are now the privileged places in which to be properly ‘postcolonial’. It is my aim to show how Erna Brodber's culturally specific studies have enormous value in the face of the more general and flattened enunciations of diaspora and creolisation which are being circulated at a theoretical level. I shall look at two fairly recent pieces of writing by Brodber: a pamphlet entitled ‘The people of my Jamaican village (1817 – 1948)’ and an essay entitled ‘Where are all the others?’ in the book Caribbean Creolisation1

Die Bildhauerin Erna Großmann

N. St.

Erna Denera, Elisabeth Böhm van Endert, Doppelbildnis, Rollenbild, in: Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F03409

Erna Denera als Hermione, Rollenbild, in: Wintermärchen

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F03410

Erna Denera als Leonore, Rollenbild, in: Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F03411

Erna Denera als Ariadne, Rollenbild, in: Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F03412

Erna Denera als Marschallin, Rollenbild, in: Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F03413

Erna Denera als Ariadne, Rollenbild, in: Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F03414

Erna Fiebiger-Peisker als Ad. Dous, Rollenbild, Hüftbild, in: Richard Wagner: Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg Wartburg

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F03676

Erna von Georgi, Brustbild, Darmstadt: Hessisches Landestheater

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F04122

Erna Denera als Fürstin Werdenberg, Szenenfoto, in: Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F07598

Erna Denera als Fürstin Werdenberg, Szenenfoto, Hüftbild, in: Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F07599