Article: Post/Koloniales Paradies. Überlegungen zu crossmedialen Paradiesmythen am Beispiel von Mauritius
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Abstract
Island paradises are culturally coded and powerfully charged topoi embedded in image politics and narratives, rather than representing neutral spaces of longing. There are numerous conceptions of paradise, which are partly understood as idealised imaginations and partly as geographical fixations. This paper examines the case of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, exploring how specific notions of paradise manifest in cross-media aesthetics; that is, the transmedial design and circulation of visual and discursive meanings, and how these notions shape contemporary spatial production and identity formation. The analysis focuses on three selected perspectives that convey and transform myths of paradise, which are temporally and spatially distinct yet entangled: (1) eighteenth-century colonial paradise imaginations, when Mauritius was conceived in literature as an exotic utopia; (2) contemporary image politics, where the island is staged as a paradisiacal setting on digital tourist platforms; and (3) future visions articulated in real estate and smart city projects, where historically inherited and newly emerging visions of paradise overlap. The paper demonstrates how these cross-media constructions of paradise influence the island‘s sociospatial configurations, producing both colonial continuities and new patterns of dependency. By interweaving historical narratives, contemporary visual languages and politically charged future visions, the paper offers a postcolonial interpretation of the medial staging of Mauritius as a paradise island. In doing so, it contributes to debates on aesthetic and medial practices of staging and narrative spatial productions in postcolonial contexts.
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