My paper’s focus is on rites of passage as transformative and liberatory forces in postcolonial/indigenous communities. To illustrate this central thesis I will present an analysis of rites of passage in the novels So Far from God (1993) by Chicana writer Ana Castillo and Baby No-Eyes (1998) by Maori writer Patricia Grace. In both novels, the rites of passage of birth, maturity, marriage and, most significantly, death, guide not only individuals but also their communities in making the transition from one state or stage of development to the next. While acknowledging the different cultural and socio-historic contexts of the two narratives, I wish to explore how both novels represent rites of passage as moral and political energisers. In both novels, rites of passage help to empower individuals—women, in particular—and their communities to participate in the national and international political processes that have traditionally marginalised them. Eventually, in these novels, communities successfully resist and fight the forces of consumerism, ecological pollution and scientific and industrial exploitation.
The paper hopes to show that these novels’ representations of the ancient rites of passage, rooted in their respective Maori and Chicano/a culture and history, offer space for a new exploration of the meaning of tradition and freedom as inspirational factors in social activism, and, thus, invite a new understanding of these communities’ processes of change, development and transformation.