Introduction: Gateways and walls or the powers and pitfalls of postcolonial metaphors

This collection of essays focuses on the evocative figures of the ‘gateway’ and the ‘wall’ to reflect on the state of postcolonial studies. Some chapters foreground the modes of articulation between literal borders and emotional (dis)connections, while others examine how artefacts ranging from personal letters to clothes may be conceptualized as metaphorical ‘gateways’ and ‘walls’ that lead or, conversely, regulate access, to specific forms of cultural expression and knowledge. Following this line of metaphorical thought, the very discipline of postcolonial studies may be regarded as a field whose borders must be constantly redrawn, and whose paradigms need to be continually reshaped and rebuilt to remain relevant in the contemporary world – in other words, the discipline itself is one that is permanently ‘under construction’.