Toksik Bedenleşmeler ve Türlerarası Adalet: Animal’s People Romanını Çevresel ve Posthümanist Bir Yaklaşımla Okumak

Year 2025, Volume: 19 Issue: 2, 349 - 362, 29.12.2025

Fatma Gamze Erkan

https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.1725552

https://izlik.org/JA42SX59GX

Abstract

Indra Sinha’nın Animal’s People adlı romanı, Bhopal felaketinden ilhamla kurgulanan bir endüstriyel çevre felaketinin insan ve insan dışı varlıklar üzerindeki uzun vadeli etkilerini çarpıcı biçimde gözler önüne serer. Roman, toksik çevrelerde yaşam mücadelesi veren toplumsal olarak dışlanmış bireyler aracılığıyla türcülük, çevresel adaletsizlik ve beden politikalarının nasıl iç içe geçtiğini ortaya koyar. Anlatı, insanmerkezci ve hümanist yaklaşımlara meydan okuyarak ekolojik karşılıklı bağımlılığı, bedenleşmiş deneyimlerin ortaklığını ve türler arası sınırların geçirgenliğini vurgular. Dört ayaklı, bedensel olarak “insan” normlarının dışında kalan ve toplumsal dışlanmaya karşı direnişçi sesiyle öne çıkan anlatıcı Animal aracılığıyla roman, kimlik, onur ve adalet kavramlarını yeniden düşünmeye davet eder. Bu çalışma, Animal’s People’ı çevresel adalet, hayvan çalışmaları ve posthümanist kuramsal yaklaşımlar doğrultusunda ele alarak, romanın yalnızca ekolojik ve toplumsal tahribatın izlerini belgelemekle kalmadığını, aynı zamanda türlerarası ilişkilenme, bakım ve direniş etiğine dayalı alternatif bir adalet anlayışı önerdiğini savunmaktadır. Romanın toksisite, bedenleşme ve türlerarası kırılganlık temsilleri üzerinden yapılan bu okuma, giderek daha fazla zarar gören bir dünyada tür sınırlarını aşan kapsayıcı bir adalet fikrinin etik ve ontolojik bir zorunluluk haline geldiğini vurgulamaktadır.

Keywords

Çevresel adalet , hayvan çalışmaları , türcülük , türlerarası kırılganlık , posthümanizm , Animal's People , Indra Sinha

Toxic Embodiments and Multispecies Justice in Animal’s People: An Environmental and Posthumanist Reading

https://izlik.org/JA42SX59GX

Abstract

Animal’s People by Indra Sinha is a powerful novel that vividly portrays the enduring impacts of a Bhopal-inspired industrial disaster on both human and nonhuman lives. Through its depiction of a toxic environment and its marginalized inhabitants, the novel challenges traditional anthropocentric and humanist assumptions by foregrounding multispecies vulnerability, ecological interconnectedness, and the blurred boundaries between humans, animals, and environments. The narrative highlights how environmental degradation, speciesism, and ableism intersect within systems of structural injustice, offering a rich ground for posthumanist critique. The protagonist’s disfigured, four-legged body and defiant voice unsettle normative conceptions of identity, dignity, and justice, revealing the ethical urgency of recognizing shared embodied precarity across species lines. This study provides a critical reading of Animal’s People through the interdisciplinary frameworks of environmental justice, animal studies, and posthumanism. It argues that the novel not only documents the legacies of ecological and social harm but also calls for a reimagined multispecies ethics grounded in relationality, care, and resistance. By analysing the novel’s complex representation of toxicity and embodiment, the study emphasizes the necessity of an inclusive justice that transcends species boundaries in an increasingly damaged world.

Keywords

Environmental justice , animal studies , speciesism , multispecies vulnerability , posthumanism , Animal's People , Indra Sinha

Thanks

This article is a revised version of the paper presented at the 17th International IDEA Conference on 7-9 May 2025, at Fırat University

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