NeMLA 2024, in-person panel: "Writing in the 'Alterity Industry': Marginalized Authors and the Politics of Publishing"
In his 2001 book The Postcolonial Exotic, Graham Huggan describes book publishing as an “alterity industry” profiting from “the commodification of cultural difference” (12), in which authors of underrepresented backgrounds must balance their authentic stories against the norms and expectations that inherently shape traditionally published work.