Browsing by Author "Joubert, Isabelle Elena"

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    Thinking through postcolonial climate justice with Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Joubert, Isabelle Elena; Jones, Megan; Jones, Megan, 1979-; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood is a much-studied, pioneering work of climate fiction. It is celebrated for its exploration of the place of the human within the web of life, its critique of neoliberal capitalism, and its navigation of horrific climate disasters. However, in all the work produced around the trilogy, there is little that considers the implications of the series for the postcolony. In this study, I provide a close reading of the trilogy and place it in conversation with postcolonial and anticapitalist thinkers. I examine the stimulus that the trilogy provides for thinking through climate justice in a poor and postcolonial context, the consequent demands of the most vulnerable on the efforts of climate justice, and the ideologies and ecophilosophies that hamper the development of bespoke, reparative environmental action. The trilogy provides a deft navigation of the experiences of the environmentally vulnerable, demonstrating the correlation between privilege and exposure to climate catastrophe. It denounces the trends in ecological discourse that blame homogenous humanity, call for depopulation, and ignore or negatively impact the postcolony. Moreover, it locates the origins of such ecophilosophies in reductive epistemological frameworks. Finally, it cultivates hope for the postcolony by suggesting that change is possible through its exposure of the farcical belief that the harmful status quo is inevitable and unchangeable. There are several limitations which complicate the trilogy’s fruitfulness as anintellectual tool for engaging the issue of decolonised environmentalism. However, the successes of the series outweigh its limitations, and ultimately, The MaddAddam Trilogy is a nuanced work that drives the reader to consider the ecological and social needs of the poor and the postcolony. It exposes the failures of dominant environmental discourse that must be avoided in the development of climate justice that amplifies the survival chances of the most vulnerable. Finally, it fosters the energising hope that change to the systems that have produced our climate crisis – and the social inequality that makes poor humans most vulnerable to ecological decline – is possible through collective reimagination and action.