Beyond recognition: Memory, desire and the hellish zone of nonbeing in encounters with otherness

Abstract This paper is an exploration of possible journeys towards freedom from colonial states of mind. These inner worlds are the distorting forms of self‐observation brought about by living under oppressive conditions, and includes those associated with colonialism itself, and also coloniality, the enduring legacy left behind by colonial regimes. Fanon describes the effect of colonialism on subjectivity as creating “a zone of nonbeing” and suggests freedom from it requires internally “an authentic upheaval.” This paper draws the parallels between Fanon's zone of nonbeing and states of mind untethered from the shackles of colonial definition. These states, akin to reverie are potentially the place from which the quest for a new authenticity of being might be found.