Environmental Justice and Third Wave Ecocritical Approaches to Literature and Film

 Key words: environmental justice, globalization, indigenous peoples, third wave ecocriticism Using films such as Babel directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñartu, or novels such as Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko can raise consciousness on environmental justice issues and the consequences of globalization and free trade agreements for different communities around the world. Both works illustrate quite poignantly the meaning of such landmark manifestos such as the United Nations Declaration on the the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice or the Earth Charter. Likewise these approaches constitute the third wave of ecocriticism whose interests lie in exploring human experience from eco-global perspectives which transcend ethnic and national borders in research.  Palabras clave: justicia medioambiental, globalización, pueblos indígenas, tercera oleada de la ecocríticaIncorporar al aula largometrajes como Babel de Alejandro Gonzalez Iñartu o novelas como Almanac of the Dead de Leslie Marmon Silko puede redundar en un aumento de la concienciación sobre la justicia medioambiental y fomentar la reflexión  sobre las consecuencias de la globalización y del comercio libre en distintas comunidades que coexisten en el planeta.  Ambos documentos resultan útiles para ilustrar el significado de otros tan importantes como la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los derechos de los pueblos indígenas, los 17 principios para la justicia ambiental y la Carta de la Tierra, al mismo tiempo que se inscriben en la tercera oleada de la ecocrítica cuyos intereses se centran en explorar la experiencia humana desde perspectivas ecoglobales y trascender  las fronteras étnicas y nacionales en la investigación

Whale as cosmos: Multi-species ethnography and contemporary indigenous cosmopolitics

Both Niki Caro’s 2002 film Whale Rider and Linda Hogan’s 2008 novel People of the Whale feature children who possess characteristics that associate them with ancient transformational animals and—at the same time—prove them to be modern leaders capable of challenging clichés surrounding the “Ecological Indian.” Both film and novel also feature traditionallycarved canoes linked to the whales considered by the many whaling peoples to be ancestors. This essay explores how events staged around these canoes offer insight into the activities of indigenous, ethnic minority, and civil society groups who are organizing a movement that has recently been described as “indigenous cosmopolitics.” While exploring the relevance of this movement for ecocriticism, the essay also examines how transformational characters might be reread for the ways they suggest new modes of research being referred to as “multi-species ethnography” by scholars who study humans within the “cosmos” of their entanglements with other kinds of living beings.Tanto la película de 2002, Whale Rider, de Niki Caro, como la novela People of the Whale de Linda Hogan, publicada en 2008, se caracterizan porque en ellas aparecen niños que poseen características que los relacionan con animales antiguos que se transforman, lo que hace que al mismo tiempo éstos demuestren tener modernas dotes de liderazgo, siendo capaces de pasar por alto los clisés que rodean al “indio ecologista”. Tanto en la novela como en la película aparecen también canoas grabadas de forma tradicional, las cuales se asocian con las ballenas, animales que están considerados como “ancestros” para una buena cantidad de pueblos balleneros. Este ensayo explora la manera en que los eventos que están relacionados con tales canoas ofrecen una perspicaz descripción de las actividades de las minorías étnicas indígenas, así como de los grupos de la sociedad civil que están organizándose en el movimiento que se ha denominado recientemente como el “cosmopolitismo indígena.” Al mismo tiempo que se explora la relevancia que este movimiento tiene dentro de la ecocrítica, se examina también cómo estos personajes que se transforman podrían releerse como sujetos que sugieren nuevos modelos de búsqueda dentro de la “etnografía de múltiples especies,” lo que es muy interesante para los estudiosos de espécimenes humanos integrados en un “cosmos” de interrelaciones con otras clases de seres vivos

Humanities for the environment—A manifesto for research and action

Human preferences, practices and actions are the main drivers of global environmental change in the 21st century. It is crucial, therefore, to promote pro-environmental behavior. In order to accomplish this, we need to move beyond rational choice and behavioral decision theories, which do not capture the full range of commitments, assumptions, imaginaries, and belief systems that drive those preferences and actions. Humanities disciplines, such as philosophy, history, religious studies, gender studies, language and literary studies, psychology, and pedagogics do offer deep insights into human motivations, values, and choices. We believe that the expertise of such fields for transforming human preferences, practices and actions is ignored at society’s peril. We propose an agenda that focuses global humanities research on stepping up to the challenges of planetary environmental change. We have established Environmental Humanities Observatories through which to observe, explore and enact the crucial ways humanistic disciplines may help us understand and engage with global ecological problems by providing insight into human action, perceptions, and motivation. We present this Manifesto as an invitation for others to join the “Humanities for the Environment” open global consortium of humanities observatories as we continue to develop a shared research agenda

Border Insecurity: Reading Transnational Environments in Jim Lynch’s Border Songs

This article applies an eco-critical approach to contemporary American fiction about the Canada-US border, examining Jim Lynch’s portrayal of the British Columbia-Washington borderlands in his 2009 novel Border Songs. It argues that studying transnational environmental actors in border texts—in this case, marijuana, human migrants, and migratory birds—helps illuminate the contingency of political boundaries, problems of scale, and discourses of risk and security in cross-border regions after 9/11. Further, it suggests that widening the analysis of trans-border activity to include environmental phenomena productively troubles concepts of nature and regional belonging in an era of climate change and economic globalization. Cet article propose une lecture écocritique de la fiction étatsunienne contemporaine portant sur la frontière entre le Canada et les États-Unis, en étudiant le portrait donné par Jim Lynch de la région frontalière entre la Colombie-Britannique et Washington dans son roman Border Songs, paru en 2009. L’article soutient que l’étude, dans les textes sur la frontière, des acteurs environnementaux transnationaux – dans ce cas-ci, la marijuana, les migrants humains et les oiseaux migratoires – jette un jour nouveau sur la contingence des limites territoriales politiques, des problèmes d’échelle et des discours sur le risque et la sécurité des régions transfrontalières après les évènements du 11 septembre 2001. Il suggère également qu’en élargissant l’analyse de l’activité transfrontalière pour y inclure les phénomènes environnementaux, on brouille de façon productive les concepts de nature et d’appartenance régionale d’une époque marquée par les changements climatiques et la mondialisation de l’économie

A place to see: Ecological literary theory and practice.

"A Place to See: Ecological Literary Theory and Practice" approaches "American" literature with an inclusive interdisciplinarity that necessarily complicates traditional notions of both "earliness" and canon. In order to examine how "Nature" has been socially constructed since the seventeenth century to support colonialist objectives, I set American literature into a context which includes ancient Mayan almanacs, the Popol Vuh, early seventeenth and eighteenth century American farmer's almanacs, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu's autobiography, the 1994 Zapatista National Liberation army uprising in Mexico, and Leslie Silko's Almanac of the Dead. Drawing on the feminist, literary and cultural theories of Donna Haraway, Carolyn Merchant, and Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Edward Said, Annette Kolodny, and Joseph Meeker, I argue that contemporary Native American writers insist that readers question all previous assumptions about "Nature" as uninhabited wilderness and "nature writing" as realistic, non-fiction prose recorded in Waldenesque tranquility. Instead the work of writers such as Silko, Louise Erdrich, Simon Ortiz, and Joy Harjo is a "nature writing" which explores the interconnections among forms and systems of domination, exploitation, and oppression across their different racial, sexual, and ecological manifestations. I posit that literary critics and teachers who wish to work for a more ecologically and socially balanced world should draw on the work of all members of our discourse community in cooperative rather than competitive ways and seek to transform literary theory and practice by bringing it back into dynamic interconnection with the worlds we all live in--inescapably social and material worlds in which issues of race, class, and gender inevitably intersect in complex and multi-faceted ways with issues of natural resource exploitation and conservation

"¡Todos Somos Indios!" Revolutionary Imagination, Alternative Modernity, and Transnational Organizing in the Work of Silko, Tamez, and Anzaldúa

This essay builds on Shari Huhndorf’s analysis of the “significant implications” of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead for Indigenous Studies by setting the novel into the context of María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo’s analysis of how Zapatista organizing activities in Chiapas, Mexico, reshaped the “revolutionary imagination in the Americas” and helped to construct an “alternative modernity” that disrupts the empty signifier of “authentic” indigenous identity. The essay juxtaposes Silko’s novel with the work of emerging Lipan-Jumano Apache poet, scholar, and activist Margo Tamez, who is currently leading an effort to retribalize the Lipan Apache in the militarized US–Mexico borderlands of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Adamson explores how Tamez and her mother are part of a growing indigenous movement to build capacity among transnational indigenous groups, groups who self-identify as “native” even though they may not be formally recognized by a nation-state, and nonnative groups whose interests in social justice and environmental protection overlap. Adamson explores how this movement is shifting the focus in Native American and American Studies away from debates about “authenticity” and cultural nationalism toward a renewed attention to hemispheric and global struggles for civil, human, and environmental rights. She also argues that, when Silko and Tamez are read together, their work suggests new avenues of interpretation for Borderlands/La Frontera and calls on scholars to reread/rethink Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of mestizaje, not as mere adherence to mythological tropes, but as suggestive of the experiences of persons of indigenous descent living in communities that fall outside the category of “nation.” The experiences of Tamez and Anzaldúa with illness and toxins, and their writing about it, also challenge readers to imagine a coalition politics that is not exactly “post-identity” but no longer invested in the boundaries of identity. “Another world is possible,” but achieving this goal—Silko, Tamez, and Anzaldúa suggest—will require alliance-making and capacity-building to strengthen local, regional, and global abilities to meet the challenge

Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations From Earth to Cosmos

This book addresses the intersections between the interdisciplinary realms of Ecocriticism and Indigenous and Native American Studies, and between academic theory and pragmatic eco-activism conducted by multiethnic and indigenous communities. It illuminates the multi-layered, polyvocal ways in which artistic expressions render ecological connections, drawing on scholars working in collaboration with Indigenous artists from all walks of life, including film, literature, performance, and other forms of multimedia to expand existing conversations. Both local and global in its focus, the volume includes essays from multiethnic and Indigenous communities across the world, visiting topics such as Navajo opera, Sami film production history, south Indian tribal documentary, Maori art installations, Native American and First Nations science-fiction literature and film, Amazonian poetry, and many others. Highlighting trans-Indigenous sensibilities that speak to worldwide crises of environmental politics and action against marginalization, the collection alerts readers to movements of community resilience and resistance, cosmological thinking about inter- and intra-generational multi-species relations, and understandings of indigenous aesthetics and material ecologies. It engages with emerging environmental concepts such as multispecies ethnography, cosmopolitics, and trans-indigeneity, as well as with new areas of ecocritical research such as material ecocriticism, biosemiotics, and media studies. In its breadth and scope, this book promises new directions for ecocritical thought and environmental humanities practice, providing thought-provoking insight into what it means to be human in a locally situated, globally networked, and cosmologically complex world.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1107/thumbnail.jp