权力、身份与社区建构——内勒笔下的城市空间与移民

当代非裔美国作家格罗里亚·内勒的《布鲁斯特街区的女人们》和《布鲁斯特街区的男人们》生动地呈现了美国现代城市空间中的权力运作。通过对布鲁斯特街区在早期、中期和晚期的发展进行叙述,这两部作品展现了20世纪美国移民群体与城市空间权力的协商。布鲁斯特街区早期的爱尔兰裔移民因追求自身利益而顺从权力,加剧了权力的不规范性;中期的意大利裔移民试图通过保留文化身份来抵抗权力逻辑,但由于代际在文化身份认同上的差异未能影响城市空间权力的运作;晚期的非裔移民表现出对城市权力的强烈批判意识,并通过社区建构转化为实际赋权行动。本文通过比较移民在对待城市空间权力上的态度揭示了作者对美国城市空间权力的批判思想,同时也引发读者对当代城市空间中的权力关系以及权力规范的反思。

Contemporary African American writer Gloria Naylor captures the intricacies of power dynamics in the modern urban space of the United States through her literary works,The Women of Brewster Place and The Men of Brewster Place.Spanning the early,middle,and late stages of Brewster Place's development,these narratives illustrate the negotiation between migrants and urban spatial power in 20th-century America.Early Irish migrants complied with power for their own interests,only to intensify the power structure.Mid-term Italian migrants attempted to resist the logic of power by preserving their cultural identity,yet generational differences in cultural identification failed to impact the operation of urban spatial power.In the later stages,African American migrants demonstrated a robust awareness of urban power and transformed it into empowerment actions through community building.By comparing the attitudes of the migrants towards the urban spatial power,this paper reveals the author's critical perspective on the power dynamics within American urban spaces,encouraging readers to reflect on contemporary urban spatial power relations and how to regulate power.