An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Isabel Pérez-Ramos (Visiting Research Fellow 2023)
Chicanx solidary counter-narratives of the Wasteocene
My research combines theories of the Wasteocene and of “geographies of racial vulnerability” with an ecocritical and econarratological analysis. The Wasteocene has been proposed by Marco Armiero and Massimo De Angelis (2017) as the name for the current epoch, characterized by the ubiquity of waste as well as of wasting relations that deem certain peoples and certain places expendable. Armiero (2021) has further developed this theory, which is connected with Laura Pulido’s (2018) racial critique of current systemic injustices that shape the world in “geographies of racial vulnerability,” implying that racialized peoples in certain locations are more likely to suffer the consequences of the socio-environmental crisis than others. Parting from fictional accounts where both waste accumulation and wasting relations are central to the plot and directly connected with racialized people, and through an ecocritical and econarratological analysis, I explore the power of counternarratives in Chicanx literature to challenge toxic stories that domesticate memory and “[i]nvisibilizeviolence, normalize injustice, [and] erase any alternative narrative” (Armiero 2021, 19).
In order to counter the toxic discourse of the Wasteocene, there is a need to pay close attention to minoritarian, subaltern stories that generate from a legacy of (e.g. racial, gender, class, sexual) discrimination and resistance. Such stories expose the deep entanglement and opposing nature of certain privileges and socio-environmental injustices. Combining an ecocritical analysis of context and plot with a detailed examination of narrative aspects in Chicanx fiction allows to understand how language can encode socio-environmental critiques, as well as how narratives can potentially influence readers’ thinking and attitudes towards the socio-environmental crisis (in line with recent findings from empirical ecocriticism). Narrative aspects such as genre, and techniques such as alternative temporalities with a high degree of spaciotemporal specificity or multiperspectivity and second person address, can serve to compose fragmented stories with a high degree of political commitment and a particular focus on socio-environmental concerns. The combination of these narrative techniques can convey messages of decolonial solidarity thatfoster empathy within the narrative, with the potential to also engage the readership. Conversely, the high degree of explicit criticism and radical political commitment of certain narratives might deter readers from aligning not just with the overall political message, but also with the specific socio-environmental critique of the narrative.
Please join in-person, or click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83178441780
Passcode: Kj7gnpP4
Please note that our weekly seminars will take place in the Moot Court in the School of Law between September and December 2023.
Accessibility: https://www.accessable.co.uk/venues/old-college-north