Post-colonial Eco-criticism and Shades of Environmental Perceptions in the Conflict Spectrum

Abstract

Environmental perception is etched in ecological psychology and describes how individuals experience bonds that are predicated upon some high sense of reliance and confidence in a place. Although African scholars and critics have used environmentally-skewed approaches to examine their post-colonial experiences, the bulk of these engagements has revolved around the environmental impact of oil in African oil producing states as if the oil crisis is the only complicit factor in environmental despoliation on the continent. Incidentally, issues emanating from the conflict spectrum, like wars and violent uprisings, contribute significantly to the myriad of environmental challenges in Africa but have not received adequate engagement in the existing literature. Not many scholars have fore-grounded purposive environmental perspectives to war/conflict narratives. Few writers have considered the scope of related physical, psychological, spiritual, and emotional dislocations to human-nature interactions manifesting as consequences of violence in conflict situations. Thus, this study adopts the qualitative analytical method and highlights the disruptive tendencies of conflict using Agbasimalo’s Roses and Bullets and Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. Relying on the tenets of Huggan and Tiffin’ strand of Post-colonial Eco-criticism, the study depicts the extent to which the far-reaching ills of the conflict spectrum can, beyond the physical destruction of the biosphere, sever place attachment bonds, desecrate the spiritual essence of spaces, invalidate the emotional and psychological import of human-nature interactions and dislocate human-nature relations in irreversible ways. The study traces the dialectics of place attachment and displacement in eco-critical discourse.