The dis/entanglements of knowledge: transversing matter, subjectivity and identity in VS Naipaul and Igshaan Adams

This article explores the potential of transdisciplinarity through the use of theories of diffraction, and postcolonial feminist subjectivity. The authors foreground essentialist categorisations of race, gender and space and then interrogate these with reference to a reading of text and art-installation in terms of space and matter. The post-colonial novel by V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River (1979) and post-apartheid art installation by Igshaan Adams, When Dust Settles (2019) have been selected to illuminate insights concerning space, matter and identity (concerning race and gender particularly) in the early and later post-colonial and post-Apartheid moments, using the theories developed by Barad, Anzaldua and Minh-ha on diffraction, liminality and gender. Through the selection the article contributes to the diffractive practice of transdisciplinary readings not only of two genres, but also what insights arise for the reader-viewer from an intra-active reading in terms of the relationship between the subject and an endangered earth and its inhabitants (human and non-human). A common theme explored in the novel and the installation, is the internalisation of space-relations, whether in the form of the landscape and (postcolonial) subjectivity, or the domestic space and the engendering of identity. The authors suggest that a transdisciplinary understanding of matter and subjectivity, underscores the importance of an ethical responsibility to matter.