Ecocriticism of the Global South: (Ecocritical Theory and Practice)

The vast majority of existing ecocritical studies, even those which espouse the “postcolonial ecocritical” perspective, operate within a first-world sensibility, speaking on behalf of subalternized human communities and degraded landscapes without actually eliciting the voices of the impacted communities. Ecocriticism of the Global South seeks to allow scholars from (or intimately familiar with) underrepresented regions to “write back” to the world’s centers of political and military and economic power, expressing views of the intersections of nature and culture from the perspective of developing countries. This approach highlights what activist and writer Vandana Shiva has described as the relationship between “ecology and the politics of survival,” showing both commonalities and local idiosyncrasies by juxtaposing such countries as China and Northern Ireland, New Zealand and Cameroon. Much like Ecoambiguity, Community, and Development, this new book is devoted to representing diverse and innovative ecocritical voices from throughout the world, particularly from developing nations. The two volumes complement each other by pointing out the need for further cultivation of the environmental humanities in regions of the world that are, essentially, the front line of the human struggle to invent sustainable and just civilizations on an imperiled planet.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgments 1.Scott Slovic, Swarnalatha Rangarajan, and Vidya Sarveswaran, Introduction 2.Priya Kumar, The Environmentalism of The Hungry Tide 3.Sharae Deckard, “The Land Was Wounded”: War Ecologies, Commodity Frontiers, and Sri Lankan Literature 4.Zhou Xiaojing, Scenes from the Global South in China: Zheng Xiaoqiong's Poetic Agency for Labor and Environmental Justice 5.Christopher Lloyd de Shield, Literary Isomorphism and the Malayan and Caribbean Archipelagos 6.Charles Dawson, Wai tangi, Waters of Grief, wai ora, Waters of Life: Rivers, Reports and Reconciliation in Aotearoa New Zealand 7.Dina El Dessouky, Fish, Coconuts, and Ocean People: Nuclear Violations of Oceania's “Earthly Design” 8.Benay Blend, Intimate Kinships: Who Speaks for Nature and Who Listens When Nature Speaks for Herself? 9.Adrian Kane, Redefining Modernity in Latin American Fiction: Toward Ecological Consciousness in La loca de Gandoca and Lo que soñó Sebastian 10.James McElroy, Northern Ireland ? Global S

About the Author :
Vidya Sarveswaran is assistant professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur. Scott Slovic edits the journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, andis professor and chair of the English Department at the University of Idaho. Swarnalatha Rangarajan is associate professor of English at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Review :
Ecocriticism of the Global South is a rare and much needed achievement in ecocriticism. It speaks from geographical and political contexts—giving it unprecedented planetary reach. In this process, it both extends and transforms the significance of the ecocritical project as a world phenomenon.