本論文探討當代作家布蘭德 (Dionne Brand) 的作品：《返鄉之圖》(A Map to the Door of No Return)，這是部近代的創意寫作，作者在當中對離散黑人的再現表達深思與關切之情。而她《點燃土地》(Land to Light On)的詩作於1997年榮獲加拿大總督獎(Governor General’s Award)和崔靈獎(Trillium Award)兩項殊榮，也因此讓她的一系列作品聲名大噪，包括散文：《麵包來自石頭》(Bread Out of Stone)、《承受無負擔》(No Burden to Carry)、《河有源，樹有根》 (Rivers Have Sources, Trees Have Roots、；小說：《無憂宮及其它故事》(Sans Souci and Other Stories、《非此地，在他方》(In Another Place, Not Here)、《滿月變動時》(At the Full and Change of the Moon)、《眾所期盼》(What We All Long For)；電影：《等待多時》(Long Time Comin’)、《更老，更壯，更睿智》(Older, Stronger, Wiser)、《奮鬥的姐妹》(Sisters in Struggle)。
布蘭德因了解黑人長期被邊緣化，且在加拿大的歷史及文學作品中也不曾被闡述，尤以黑人女性更為顯著，因此決定要透過文學及文化創作來為他們發聲，為這些黑人重寫加拿大歷史，包含的議題有種族歧視、性別歧視、及資本主義問題，這些都與邊緣族群息息相關。而《返鄉之圖》是以筆記式的書寫來呈現，異於其它黑人文學，也有別於作者之前的寫作方式；本書描寫離散經驗，表達了感受、慾望與憂愁等，錯綜複雜的離散情感，在這部重要的作品當中，作者深刻探究離散黑人在生活中面臨的不平等處境及種族歧視的衝突，該文本透過抒情式的書寫來繪製家園及表達對家的殷切期望，令人動容；筆者認為布蘭德試圖從離散黑人的立場與觀點來重建黑人歷史、文化與族譜，並呈現黑人處在歷史、認同及文化裂痕中所面臨的衝突。本論文研究布蘭德《返鄉之圖》如何呈現離散黑人在多元文化中認同的問題，以及該文本中所呈現的「地圖」如何連結，或者說試圖去連結所有的離散黑人。
本論文有五個章節，第一章介紹論文的理論架構，並追溯加、非歷史及文學，來了解黑人如何被遺忘在白人為主的教育及歷史機制中，也理解什麼樣的危機認同觸發布蘭德的寫作動機，另外，本章節會為作者布蘭德及其作品《返鄉之圖》做定位，因其對離散論述及離散歷史記載有重要的貢獻。第二章處理認同的問題，在作者的旅途記載當中，她不斷在過去及現在的時空中擺盪及對話，同時伴隨著記憶與掙扎，尤以作者在文本中的遷移意像，對加拿大歷史記載有很大的意義，讓我們了解到錯置(dislocation)的動能：離散黑人如何在異質多元的處境中尋求再定位？誠如布蘭德所言：「我們(離散黑人)一直在蜕變中」，他們同時處在加拿大歷史及文化的「內緣」與「外緣」，換言之，他們處於歷史與記憶的邊緣。
第三章筆者將引述巴芭(Homi Bhabha) 〝居間空間(in-between spaces) 〞的理論來分析《返鄉之圖》文類的問題，莫瑟(Kobena Mercer)在〈離散文化與對話想像〉(“Diaspora Culture and Dialogic Imagination”)一文中提出發人省思的問題：「被殖民者要如何用殖民者的語言來表達自我？」對此問題，布蘭德以「文類操演」(genre performativity)呈現黑人美學，來對抗權威式傳統的方式，成功對此問題做了最佳詮釋，進而延伸值得探討的問題：加非族群的定位及經驗為何？為什麼離散黑人處於蜕變當中，而非單一的非洲文化或加拿大文化？第四章描繪家的歸屬問題，作者透過地圖及海水的意像，為離散黑人繪製出空間，文中充分表現出作者的失落與錯置，以及對家的歸心似箭；海水對離散黑人有著矛盾的情感，因為海水會回憶起「中間航程」(the Middle Passage) 的創傷；同時，海水又是他們回家的希望。本章節為了探討布蘭德的回家策略及回家「路徑/根」(route/root)，會以吉爾羅 (Paul Gilroy)的「黑色大西洋」(the Black Atlantic)、克里佛(James Clifford)和霍爾(Stuart Hall)的離散理論來說明。第五章的結論會對本論文所提出的議題及布蘭德的貢獻作個總結。

This thesis explores contemporary writer Dionne Brand’s profound meditation on and concern with the representation of Black people in the diaspora as presented in her recent work of creative nonfiction A Map to the Door of No Return (2001). Brand has received the Governor General’s Award for her poetry and the Trillium Award in 1997 for Land to Light On; she has also distinguished herself with her collections of essays: Bread out of Stone (1994), No Burden to Carry (1991), and Rivers Have Sources, Trees Have Roots (1986); her novels: Sans Souci and Other Stories (1989), In Another Place, Not Here (1996), At the Full and Change of the Moon (1999), and What We All Long For (2005); and her films: Long Time Comin' (1993), Older, Stronger, Wiser (1989), and Sisters in the Struggle (1991).
Having realized that Black people—in particular Black women—have long been marginalized and forgotten in the Canadian history and literary representations, Brand is determined to speak for them through her literary and cultural productions. Her oeuvre rewrites Canadian historiography for those disarticulated Black people. Most of her writings, which are closely connected to those oppressed margins, deal with a variety of issues ranging from racism and sexism to capitalism. Among her writings, A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging, written in the form of a note-narrative, is an important text that distinguishes itself not only from other forms of black literature but also from Brand’s previous writings. It portrays the experiences of Black diaspora and expresses a variety of feelings and emotions, including perception, desire, and anxiety. In this important work, Brand examines closely the very situation of the disarticulated diasporic Black people, who are still confronted with conflicts of racism and inequality in their lives. Attracted by her lyrical mapping of and complex (be)longing to/for home, I propose that Brand, from the perspective of Black diaspora, not only attempts to represent Black history and cultural genealogy but also problematizes the current conflicting relationship within the Black diaspora, which is located at multiple disjunctures of history, identity and culture. This thesis will investigate how Brand’s text represents the question of diaspora identification in a culturally hybridized world. How does the “map” it proposes connect—or attempt to connect—black people in the diaspora?
This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter One is an introduction to the project as a whole. It focuses on the discussion of the theoretical framework of diaspora and traces African Canadian history and literature in order to explore how the blacks are forgotten within a matrix of white-centered education and history. In addition, it highlights the position of Brand in Black Canadian Literature and places her texts in a proper context with special attention to A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging, a work which makes a significant contribution to diaspora discourse and diasporic historiography. Chapter Two is concerned with how Brand explores the problem of diaspora identification in her work. Through her journeys real and imagined, Brand oscillates between the past and the present and simultaneously incorporates her memories and struggles. Brand’s migrancy contributes to Canadian historiography and allows us to view the dynamics of dislocation: how do the blacks in diaspora relocate themselves in a heterogeneous situation? As Brand writes, “We’re [Blacks in the diaspora are] in the middle of becoming,” both “inside” and simultaneously “outside” Canadian histories and culture.
Chapter Three analyzes the genre of A Map to the Door of No Return. I will use Homi Bhabha’s conception of “in-between spaces” to analyze the genre of A Map. In his “Diaspora Culture and Dialogic Imagination,” Kobena Mercer asks the following thought-provoking question: “How can the ‘colonized’ express an authentic self in an alien language imposed by the imperial power of the ‘colonizer’?” This chapter will provide answers to the following questions raised by Mercer: in what ways does the text foreground the very position/existence of both the text itself and the black people in diaspora? How does the language used by Brand represent alternative modes of black aesthetics to contest a single authoritative language? What kind of distinctive position and experiences do African Canadians occupy? What makes them belong neither to merely African nor Canadian culture but to more complex sites of becoming? Chapter Four draws on Brand’s techniques of writing home. Brand incorporates her loss and displacement into her works and at the same time reflects on her pressing need to go “home.” This text in question is a book of mapping that re-draws the space through water/ocean to locate blacks in the diaspora. For those black people in diaspora, the water/ocean paradoxically recalls the trauma of the Middle Passage and connects the way to home and hope. To elaborate on the idea of mapping, this chapter draws mainly on Paul Gilroy’s discussion of the “Black Atlantic” and Brand’s (im)possible homecoming by her cartographic project. Her roots/routes of homecoming will be examined in the light of James Clifford’s and Stuart Hall’s theoretic notions of diaspora. The concluding chapter summarizes the arguments of the thesis and Brand’s contribution to our understanding of the Black diaspora.

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