SLOW HEALING: ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN UNBOWED: A MEMOIR

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 64 Sayı: 1, 124 - 143, 25.06.2024

Hediye Özkan

https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2024.64.1.6

Öz

In her autobiography Unbowed: A Memoir (2006), Wangari Maathai, a political activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, depicts environmental and political struggle against the legacies of colonialism. The personal narrative chronicles the ways in which the socio-cultural and ecological exploitation is perpetuated due to (neo)colonialism, capitalism, the centralization of power, and modernity under the myth of progress. In 1977, Maathai’s individual environmental efforts evolved into a collective struggle, The Green Belt Movement, which has trained rural women in Kenya to plant trees, generate income, and relentlessly fight against deforestation and soil erosion by planting millions of trees in Africa. This study examines Maathai’s personal narrative, which overtly highlights the interconnectedness of environmental and social justice by suggesting that without ecological justice, social justice is not possible. Drawing on the concept of “slow violence” to examine the resignifications of ecological damage in Africa and analyzing life writing a site of resistance, negotiation and agency, this study discusses the politics of decoloniality generated by indigenous knowledge systems to understand the interrelatedness of human and nature and reinstate basic human rights, damaged environment, and the perception of nature.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Slow violence/healing, Wangari Maathai, postcolonial ecocritical theory, life writing

SLOW HEALING: ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN UNBOWED: A MEMOIR

Öz

Nobel barış ödülü sahibi ve siyasi aktivist Wangari Maathai, sömürgenin kalıntılarına karşı çevresel ve siyasi mücadelesini Unbowed: A Memoir (2006) adlı otobiyografisinde nakleder. Kitap neo-kolonyalizm, kapitalizm, gücün tekelleşmesi ve gelişim miti altında modernizmden kaynaklanan sosyal-kültürel ve çevresel tahakküme karşı Maathai’nin mücadelesini konu alır. Maathai’nin çabaları, Kenya’nın kırsal kesimindeki kadınları ağaç dikmeleri için eğiten, onlara maddi gelir sağlayan ve Afrika genelinde milyonlarca ağaç dikerek ormansızlaşma ve erozyonla savaşan kolektif bir mücadeleye dönüşerek 1977 yılında Yeşil Kemer Hareketi adını alır. Bu çalışma, çevresel adalet sağlanmadan sosyal adaletten söz edilemeyeceğini önererek çevresel ve sosyal adaletin birbiri ile olan yakın ilişkisini inceler. “Yavaş şiddet” kavramı ile Afrika’daki çevresel tahribatın yanı sıra direnç, uzlaşma ve eylem alanı olan anı yazınsal türünü inceleyen bu çalışma, insan ve çevrenin karmaşık ilişkisini anlamayı amaçlar. Tahrip olmuş çevreyi ve insanların çevre hakkındaki tutumlarını onarmak ve temel insan haklarını yeniden tahsis etmek için yerli bilgi sistemleri tarafından üretilen bağımsızlaşma politikalarını irdeler.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Wangari Maathai, Yavaş Şiddet/İyileşme, Postkolonyal Ekoeleştiri Kuramı, Anı Türü

Kaynakça

• Ehrenfeld J. R., & Hoffman, A. J. (2013). Flourishing: A frank conversation about sustainability. Stanford, CA: Greenleaf Publishing.
• Deloughrey, E. (2014). Postcolonialism. In G. Garrard (Ed.). The oxford handbook of ecocriticism (pp. 320-240). New York: Oxford University Press.
• DeLoughrey, E., & Handley, G. (2011). Introduction: Toward an aesthetics of the earth. In E. DeLoughrey & G. B. Handley (Eds.). Postcolonial ecologies: Literatures of the Environment (pp. 3-39). London: Oxford University Press.
• Fletcher, K. (20229. Life writing as an ecological method. The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry, 14(2), 193-202.
• Huggan, G., & Tiffin, H. (2010). Postcolonial ecocriticism: Literature, animals, environment. New York: Routledge.
• Iverson, K. (1978). Civilization and assimilation in the colonized schooling of Native Americans. In P. G. Altbach & G. P. Kelly (Eds.). Education and Colonialism (pp. 149-180). Harlow: New Longman.
• Kincaid, J. (1999). My garden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Mathai, W. (2022). Fasten our green belts toward a resilient and sustainable future. Regions & Cohesion, 12(2), 4-20.
• Maathai, W. (2012). Agroforestry, climate change, and habitat protection. In P.K. Ramachandran Nair & D. Garrity (Eds.). Agroferestry: The future of global land use (pp. 3-6). New York: Springer.
• Maathai, W. (2009). The challenge for Africa. New York: Pantheon.
• Maathai, W. (2006). Unbowed: A memoir. New York: Random House.
• Maathai, W. (2003). The green belt movement: Sharing the approach and the experience. Ikeja: Lantern Books.
• Mainah F., &, Konaté, M. (2018). Women’s empowerment and sustainable development in Kenya. In Robert Dibie (Ed.), Women’s empowerment for sustainability in Africa (pp. 199-299). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Michaelson, M. (1994). Wangari Maathai and Kenya's green belt movement: Exploring the evolution and potentialities of consensus movement mobilization. Social Problems, 41(4), 540-561.
• Mikell, G. (1995). African feminism: Toward a new politics of representation. Feminist Studies, 21(2), 405-424.
• Mukutu E. J., Mukabi K. W., & Siundu, G. (2018). An ecocritical reading of Wangari Maathai’s autobiography Unbowed: A Memoir. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science (IOSR-JHSS), 23(10), 12-20.
• Muthuki, J. (2006). Challenging patriarchal structures: Wangari Maathai and the green belt movement in Kenya. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 20, 82-91.
• Mutie, S. M. (2022a). Labelling and othering: (Re)Engaging Wangari Maathai’s madwoman tag in Unbowed: A Memoir. Imbizo, 13(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.25159/2663- 6565/9438
• Mutie, S. M. (2022b). Re-membering Wangari Maathai’s feminist scholarship in her autobiography Unbowed: One Woman’s Story. Journal of Higher Education in Africa / Revue de l'enseignement supérieur en Afrique, 20(1), 67-84.
• Nixon, R. (2011). Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Okuyade, O. (2013). Eco-Critical literature: Regreening African landscapes. New York: African Heritage Press.
• Rawat G., & Gaurav, V. K. (2023). Colonial invasion and environmental degradation in Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed: A Memoir. Hypatia, 38(2), 405-422. https://doi.org/10.1017/hyp.2023.37
• Rodney, W. (2006). How Europe underdeveloped Africa. In P. S. Rothenberg (Ed.), Beyond borders: Thinking critically about global issues (pp. 107-125). New York: Worth.
• Schell, E. E. (2013). Transnational environmental justice rhetorics and the green belt movement: Wangari Muta Maathai's ecological rhetorics and literacies. Rhetorics Regulating Childhood and Children's Rights, 33(3/4), 585-613.
• Shohat, E. (1992). Notes on the ‘post-colonial.’ Social Text, 31/32(110 2/3), 99-113.
• Snyder, G. (1990). The practice of the wild. Berkeley: Counterpoint.
• Stuhlhofer, E. W. (2022). Black, female, and divorced: A discourse analysis of Wangarĩ Maathai’s leadership with reflections from Naleli Morojele’s study of Rwandan and South African female political leaders. Societies, 12(23), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.3390/ soc12010023
• van Klinken, A. (2022) Wangari Maathai’s environmental Bible as an Africa knowledge: Eco-spirituality, Christianity, and decolonial thought. Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, 8(3), 156-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/23277408.2021.1922129
• Worster, D. (1994). Nature’s economy: A history of ecological ideas (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Zapf, H. (2016). Introduction. In H. Zapf (Ed.). Handbook of ecocriticism and cultural ecology (pp. 1-16). Berlin: De Gruyter.
• Zapf, H. (2013). Cultural ecology, literature and life writing. In A. Hornung & Zhao Baisheng (Eds.). Ecology and life writing (pp. 3-26). Heidelberg: Universitaetsverlag.
• Zelezny L., & Bailey, M. (2006). A call for women to lead a different environmental movement. Organization & Environment, 19(1), 103- 109.