Mimicry as a Decolonial Praxis: Exploring Colonial Representations in On the Banks of the Mayyazhi
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is characterized by complex interactions of power, spatial dynamics, and social structures. Literary narratives function as critical instruments for exposing the underlying discourses of colonialism that permeate everyday social exchanges. While some narratives tacitly acknowledge colonial hegemony, others strive to subvert it in pursuit of a postcolonial stance. However, Indian writers and critics have long neglected the imperative of decolonial readings in narratives addressing colonisation and westernisation themes. Yet, M. Mukundan's novel, On the Banks of the Mayyazhi, uniquely integrates colonial, postcolonial, and decolonial dimensions of social relations, fostering a nuanced understanding of contemporary social dynamics. This paper employs Homi K. Bhabha's concept of Mimicry to trace the discourses of colonial control within the narrative. Mukundan vividly portrays the colonisation of Mahe by the French alongside the local freedom struggle, facilitating an exploration of mimicry's multifaceted implications and its potential transcendence into mockery as a means to surpass subjugation. Furthermore, the paper underscores the inconsistencies inherent in postcolonial efforts to dismantle colonial boundaries even after their physical dissolution. Such postcolonial narrative analyses are relevant in navigating individual existence amidst the complexities of daily social relations in a neo-colonial milieu.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.024 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".