ABSTRACT
A key to the invasion of Caliban’s place by Prospero’s language was the assumption that Caliban, a creature so racially inferior that he was less than human, did not have a place but was a part of, a feature of, the place. This attitude is played out time and again as colonizers invade and occupy indigenous lands. Although an integral part of the land, the inhabitants are not regarded as owning the land because they do not farm it. The struggle over place that ensues from this is also a struggle in language even though it is a war in which the coloniser appears unassailable. The physical invasion and occupation of colonial space is a small part of the contest, for this struggle issues from a profoundly different conception of space, grounded in a profoundly different conception of language.
