Enduring Nature: Everyday Environmentalisms in Postcolonial Literature

Abstract

<p>This dissertation draws on a broad range of postcolonial literature in order to explore literary representations of environmentalism in the global South. Although this project draws heavily on the particular environmental histories of different nations and geographic regions, I am also interested in areas of overlap. In this study I do two interrlated and simultaneous things that I hope will refine postcolonial ecocriticism. The first involves a broadening of the definition of 'environment,' informed by the environmental justice movment, in ways that make it more applicable and accountable to people's lived lives. This expanded definition of the environment includes those spaces where people live and work. Such a redefinition, I argue, is a crucial counter-measure to ecocriticism's Anglo-American focus, where traditional American environmental values of conservation, preservation, and the cult of the wilderness prevail. The second intervention involves using ecocriticism alongside this expanded notion of the environment to unearth the everyday environmentalisms at work in postcolonial literature that may go unnoticed through traditional ecocritical approaches. I argue that this everyday approach successfully avoids some of the common hurdles in postcolonial ecocriticism. These hurdles include debates over the origins of environmental thought, questions about the link between affluence and environmental consciousness, and the contentious space of animals in postcolonial thought and literature. By beginning with an examination of the ways in which people interact with their own local environments, I am able to explore environmental thought and action on the ground and can begin theorizing there. What is revealed through these analyses is that this expanded definition of environmentalism and this new ecocritical approach open the door to viewing environmentality as a common and foundational feature of postcolonial literature. My chapters explore various facets of these everyday environmentalisms, including ecofeminist perspectives, anthropocentric versus biocentric representations of the environment, urban space, and finally the idea of going back to the land. The issues that I explore throughout these chapters include legacies of colonialism, globalization, racism and speceism, ecolocial/ecocritical imperialism, and postcoloniality.</p>