埃博拉叙事中的种族主义:以普雷斯顿的非虚构小说为例

Racism in Ebola Narrative:The Case of Richard Preston’s Non-Fiction

美国作家理查德·普雷斯顿根据埃博拉疫情创作了《血疫》(1994)和《血殇》(2019)两部非虚构作品,记录了非洲大陆与美国两地医护人员和病毒抗争的故事。在这两部作品中,普雷斯顿将埃博拉病毒与次撒哈拉以南非洲地区建立了地理关联,突出了埃博拉病毒的种族地理和身体特性。本文指出,其基于种族主义认知的话语形态建构了危险空间和安全空间以及危险身体与安全身体之间相互交织的二元对立。这一表征方式虽然可以增强美国民众对美国防疫体系的信任,却会进一步导致对非洲人民原有的种族偏见和歧视的固化。

American writer Richard Preston has created two nonfictional works on the historical Ebola outbreaks,The Hot Zone(1994)and Crisis in the Red Zone(2019),weaving the stories of fights against Ebola by the joint efforts of African and American medical doctors.In his Ebola narratives,Preston emphasizes a geographical affiliation of the Ebola virus to the sub-Sahara African region,thus highlighting the racial geographical feature and racial body association.It is asserted by the paper that such racial discourses construct antithetical imageries in his narratives:safe space vs.dangerous space,and safe body vs.dangerous body.Although such binary oppositional constructs are conducive to building up American people’s trust on their national epidemic prevention system,they somehow enhance many pre-existing racial stereotypes and prejudices on African peoples.