SEM Transculturalismes : Pablo Mukherjee, « Memories of the Future: Post-Colonial Climate Fiction »

Memories of the Future: Postcolonial Climate-Fiction

Postcolonial societies are generally, though not exclusively, marked by the « environmentalism of the poor » (Martínez-Alier, J. 2002). While such historical struggles and conflicts around the unequal and uneven appropriation and distribution of the so-called « free gifts of nature » illuminate some fundamental aspects of modern and contemporary forms of colonialism and capitalism, their relationship with the geo-historical processes of climate change is less clear. In this essay, I argue that certain forms of postcolonial fiction register and represent « environmentalism of the poor » in order to extend their enquiry to climate change and climate crises. I compare the work of this fiction to benchmark « official » reports and enquiries such as the IPCC reports to show that such postcolonial fiction can and does go to places where these others cannot, precisely because of its awareness of the inter-related social, historical and aesthetic dimensions of the modern colonial life-world.