INICIJACIJSKO-GNOSEOLOŠKI PUTEVI NEOFITA U PUTOPISU „AFRIKA“ RASTKA PETROVIĆA

The primary move within this research presupposes the monitoring of the neophyte's experiences, knowledge and changes during his journey on the African continent. In this context, this inclination towards getting to know the life and culture of the Other will be observed through the prism of the process of initiation and individuation, the subject of which is the travel writer himself. After the introductory segment, in which the meaning potentials of the initiation process itself will be analytically approached, the research will be focused on the significance of the residence of representatives of the European cultural identity under a different sky and on its direct contact with the identity position of Otherness. The knowledge that the initiate comes to in the encounter with nature, that is, with the place of meeting and cooperation of nature and being, will be detected by looking at the individuational transformation of his personality through three stages of initiation: preliminary, liminary and postliminary. In each of these levels, changes in the neophyte's relationship with nature and the natural man will be observed, his relationship with the assistant, as well as the need for him, the very identity position of that assistant-mediator, the initiate's introduction to the otherness of the Other, and the recognition of the heterogeneous potential of Otherness, etc. Given that the circular principle of the path assumes a return to the starting point, the final segments of the research will consider the differences of the neophyte's experience of the cultural positioning of the Other, the authority of the privileged identity position of the white colonizer, the discursive position of power that creates history and stereotypes, all in the contexts before and after contact with the self, before and after initiation.