Competition and Cooperation in Peter Carey’s A Long Way from Home

This paper studies competition and cooperation in A Long Way from Home within transmodernity, the emerging socio-cultural paradigm. It argues that, despite the heavy focus on competition favoured by the car rally the protagonists enter, the novel encourages cooperation. This ties in with the recover...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Arizti Martín, Bárbara
Tipo de recurso: capítulo de libro
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universidad Pablo de Olavide (UPO)
Repositorio:RIO. Repositorio Institucional Olavide
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:rio.upo.es:10433/24425
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10433/24425
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Indigenous Australians
Transmodernity
Irena Ateljevic
Riane Eisler
Descripción
Sumario:This paper studies competition and cooperation in A Long Way from Home within transmodernity, the emerging socio-cultural paradigm. It argues that, despite the heavy focus on competition favoured by the car rally the protagonists enter, the novel encourages cooperation. This ties in with the recovery by transmodern scholar Irena Ateljevic of Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade, which seminally put forward the “partnership” and “domination” models structuring human evolution. The analysis backs Eisler and Ateljevic’s claim that contemporary times, in the midst of unprecedented turbulence, are progressively veering towards a partnership system based on caring behaviours, empathy and cooperation. Two salient traits of transmodernity are studied: attention to the commonalities of existence and the turn to pre-modern forms of knowledge. In this light, the novel succeeds in avoiding postmodern competing identitarianism while it escapes modernity’s universalising tendencies in revaluing Indigenous lore.