Decolonizing the Ecological Crisis
CALL FOR PAPERS
PSA International Newsletter #30 Decolonizing the Ecological Crisis
The global ecological and climate crisis is strongly linked to modernity and its history of imperialism, colonisation, capitalism, and exploitation of resources. Postcolonial ecocriticism and its distinctive approach to environmental questions help us see these connections. By interrogating the interrelations between colonisation and environmental issues, postcolonial ecocriticism redirects customary postcolonial questions by triangulating them with the relations between the human and the more-thanhuman. Postcolonial ecocriticism examines the ways in which human exploitation transforms ecosystems, limits access to natural resources, and generates pollution and other hazards. More significantly, postcolonial ecocriticism shows an awareness of the local specificities of ecological issues linked to colonial history, while acknowledging their global context. As an awareness for the need to share the earth’s resources sustainably and fairly has taken centre stage in the international political landscape, shifting perceptions of the environment are changing people’s sense of responsibility and accountability, bringing to the fore marginalised perspectives and reconfiguring human and more-than-human relations in respectful ways. We encourage submissions that consider how storytelling (fiction, memoirs, poetry, drama, performance, films and new media such as podcasting and video games, etc…) engages with topics such as:
• environment, justice and race / ethnicity / indigeneity;
• environment, justice and gender; ecofeminism;
• environmental justice in relation to local and global contexts;
• environmental justice and human rights;
• the Anthropocene and climate change and race/ ethnicity / indigeneity;
• the Anthropocene and climate change and gender;
• neocolonialism and toxic imperialism;
• petrocultures and/or extractivism;
• relations between the human and the nonhuman or more-than-human;
• multispecies critique
Original contributions should be between 700 and 1,200 words and should be fully referenced using Harvard Referencing Style. Please also send a 100-word biographical statement.
We are also looking for book reviews in relation to any recent books in the field of postcolonial studies, especially in the area of postcolonial ecocriticism, for this issue. Reviews should be between 500 and 1,000 words and should be fully referenced using Harvard Referencing Style.
The deadline for submissions is 31st May 2023.
Please submit your contribution via email to the PSA Newsletter editorial team: Francesca Mussi franci.mussi86@gmail.com, Jennifer Gray jgray@tntech.edu and Priyanka Tripathi priyankatripathi@iitp.ac.in.