WHERE THE SEA REMEMBERS BLUE HUMANITIES, OCEANIC MEMORY, AND POSTCOLONIAL BECOMING IN MONIQUE ROFFEY’S THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH

Abstract

This article examines Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch through the combined lenses of Blue Humanities, postcolonial ecocriticism, and transcorporeality. It argues that the novel constructs the Caribbean Sea not as a scenic backdrop but as a living archive of colonial violence, indigenous memory, ecological vulnerability, and postcolonial becoming. Centering on Aycayia, the mermaid figure is read as a site of indigenous remembrance, ecofeminist resistance, and embodied oceanic subjectivity. The article also shows how the novel represents colonial and neocolonial oceanic relations through extraction, tourism, and commodification, while proposing reciprocity, relationality, and ethical return as alternatives. Finally, it demonstrates that the novel’s polyphonic structure, creolized language, and temporal disjunction formally enact oceanic consciousness rather than merely describing it. By linking close textual analysis with environmental and postcolonial theory, the article positions Roffey’s novel as a significant contribution to Caribbean blue literary studies and to broader debates on oceanic memory and ecological justice.