Arquivos do Império: O 'Diário do Congo' de Roger Casement

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze Roger Casement’s Congo Diary not only as a form of self-writing but also, in a broader sense, as an archive of empire—a repository that is simultaneously subjective and that, at the same time, condenses the Zeitgeist of the period and inscribes central issues of its contemporaneity. The article proceeds from the hypothesis that the diary, in its formal specificities, differs significantly from the Report, particularly with regard to content, fragmentation, temporality, and the manner in which experience is inscribed. It seeks to discuss the controversies surrounding Casement’s sexuality, which is recorded in the diary in a coded manner, through symbols and the use of other languages, and how this same document contributed to his subsequent rejection, even eliciting feelings of abjection. Such reception, in turn, complicates readings of his reports on the Congo and the Amazon, which are often regarded as pioneering texts in the field of human rights, as well as of Casement’s own historical figure. The theoretical framework draws on studies of self-writing, the diary, and travel writing, particularly those of Michel Foucault (1992), Irina Paperno (2004), and Maurice Blanchot (2005), as well as theories of abjection and disgust developed by Julia Kristeva (1982) and William Ian Miller (1997).