(Dis)possessing one’s land: an ecocritical reading of Shumona Sinha’s Calcutta
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17398/2660-7301.49.31Keywords:
Francophone Xenographies, Environmental Justice, India, Eco-Social Relations, Violence, Shumona SinhaAbstract
Our study analyzes the novel Calcutta (2014) by the Franco-Indian author Shumona Sinha (1973) from an ecocritical perspective. Through the geographical and symbolic space of Calcutta, as well as the experiences of its characters, Sinha highlights the direct and structural violence exerted on nature, the city itself, and its inhabitants. What emerges is a critique of the dualistic relations of domination and power (capitalism/socialism, North/South, West/East), reflected in the exploitation of both natural resources and cultural imaginaries for foreign interests, while local populations are left to bear the environmental, economic, and social consequences.
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