Abstract: Caribbean diaspora literature, viewed through a Global South critical lens, faces the dual challenge of recovering suppressed histories while guarding against their subsumption under Global North epistemic frameworks. Andrea Levy’s Small Island employs a polyphonic “archipelagic narrative” to disrupt the insular logic of conventional historiography. By mediating Caribbean-British relations through memories of the Second World War, the novel constructs a “community of catastrophe” and seeks to establish the historical subjectivity and ethical legitimacy of diaspora subjects. However, the “dark skin, white gloves” mode of identity articulated in the novel lacks a sustained decolonized imagination, and its political vision remains constrained by existing regimes of recognition. At its core, the archipelagic narrative operates as a strategic politics of relation: though formally advocating cross-cultural connection, it effectively suspends more fundamental issues, such as racial emancipation and epistemic decolonization, through narratives of individualized class mobility. In this way, the text reveals a broadly significant “recognition paradox” in Global South diaspora writing, whereby efforts to secure recognition from the Other may inadvertently reproduce the very power logic they seek to contest.

Key words: Caribbean diaspora literature, Global South, archipelagic narrative, Andrea Levy, Small Island

摘要： 在全球南方批判视域下,加勒比裔流散文学的历史书写面临既要重构被压抑的历史、又须警惕被全球北方的认知框架收编的双重使命。安德烈娅·利维的《小岛》以多声部“群岛叙事”打破历史书写中的孤岛逻辑,以二战记忆为中介建构加勒比与英国之间的“灾难共同体”,试图为流散者确立历史主体性与伦理合法性。然而,小说所塑造的“深皮肤、白手套”式身份认同缺乏明确的解殖想象,其政治想象仍受制于既有承认机制,从而将南方未来的历史可能性压缩于既定的认知框架之内。小说中的群岛叙事本质上是一种关系政治策略,形式上吁请跨文化互联,实则借助阶级上升的个体叙事,悬置了种族解放与认知解殖等更为根本的议题。由此,文本揭示出全球南方流散书写中具有普遍意义的“承认悖论”,即在争取他者承认的过程中,却可能复现其所试图挑战的权力逻辑。

关键词: 加勒比裔流散文学, 全球南方, 群岛叙事, 安德烈娅·利维, 《小岛》