Theorising the Postcolonial Eco-Novel

This introductory chapter situates the monograph’s aims and significance within global ecocritical and postcolonial scholarship on “unsettlement” and Indigenous and non-Indigenous belonging. I outline my argument that ecofiction novels authored by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian writers interrogate Western-colonial preconceptions of nature and belonging through varied depictions of the nonhuman, emphasising the increasingly relevant notion of unsettlement in the context of climate crisis and the (post)colonial nation state. There is particular attention paid to addressing whether contemporary “postcolonial ecocriticism” adequately reflects all postcolonial literary traditions, such as that of the Australian postcolonial nation state. I also position myself as a non-Indigenous, Anglo-Celtic Australian scholar and define some key terms relevant to my argument, such as “ecofiction”, “nonhuman”, “nature”, “place”, “Indigenous”, “non-Indigenous”, “settler” and “unsettlement”.

This chapter conceptualises what I term the “postcolonial eco-novel” as an increasingly relevant literary form that considers contemporary ecological concerns in the context of (post)coloniality and notions of belonging and unsettlement. I situate my own definition of the postcolonial eco-novel in the context of existing literary scholarship in ecocriticism, postcolonial literature and Indigenous literature, and broader theory in the environmental humanities such as animal studies, multispecies studies, environmental justice and environmental history. Importantly, I discuss the current gap in scholarship when it comes to popular genre and ecofiction, outlining the ability of some popular genre texts within the broader genre of ecofiction to reflect notions of unsettlement through an engagement with the nonhuman. I define Australian ecofiction as made up of both popular genre and more traditionally “literary” fictions, both of which unsettle perspectives on the nonhuman and associated ecological crises, albeit in different ways. I also discuss the links between First Nations storytelling practices and the Australian postcolonial eco-novel’s approach to the nonhuman, climate, Indigenous sovereignty, and non-Indigenous belonging. This discussion is then linked with existing scholarship on nonhuman agency, more-than-human cultures and multispecies relations, and I argue for the potential of the postcolonial eco-novel to subvert the use of nonhuman symbolism and instead reflect more embodied, agential portrayals of the nonhuman.

This chapter begins my exploration of the nonhuman with a focus on the animal in two works of speculative, literary climate fiction. Specifically, I consider how Waanyi author Alexis Wright and Filipino-Australian author Merlinda Bobis interrogate the notion of borders through their depiction of migration, climate refugees and human–animal communication in speculative, near-future settings. In doing so, both authors also challenge traditional structures and chronologies of the Western novel, further reflecting the notion of unsettlement. Key points of discussion in this chapter include Wright’s portrayal of the entangled, mobile relations between protagonist Oblivia (a young Indigenous woman) and the black swan in The Swan Book (2013) and the role of Indigenous knowledge systems in combatting both climate crisis and colonial exploitation and domination. The protagonist of Merlinda Bobis’ Locust Girl (2015) is similarly entangled with the nonhuman animal, although Bobis’ novel situates this entanglement more specifically in diasporic perspectives on belonging, conflict and border crossings. Both texts work to challenge Western-colonial perceptions of land ownership, borders and the nonhuman animal, while emphasising the links between climate crisis and the unsettlement of non-Indigenous belonging on stolen Indigenous land.

This chapter undertakes a close reading of two Australian eco-novels that explicitly address the potential future impact of climate change on Australian habitats and communities in specific geographical locations. Mireille Juchau’s The World Without Us (2015) and Catherine McKinnon’s Storyland (2017) explore the passing of time in places ravaged by environmental catastrophe and feature what I term “habitat stories”—collaborative stories told through both nonhuman and human experiences that encourage deeper connections between the two, with a particular focus on how different vegetations both enable and challenge white settler-Australian belonging in a time of climate emergency. McKinnon’s work depicts the changing habitats and community of a specific coastal location—Lake Illawarra—across many generations. Similarly, Juchau’s work portrays the devastating impact of logging and mining economies on a rural rainforest town and its inhabitants. This chapter focuses on the role of habitat, local community and settler-colonial cultural change in addressing the impacts of climate crisis on the human and nonhuman. Significantly, these novels both challenge and advance problematic settler-colonial perspectives of nature and the nonhuman and thus represent a shift in the way non-Indigenous Australian authors are depicting settler-colonial relations with the nonhuman.

This chapter offers a close reading of two eco-novels which I define as part of the Australian regional literary tradition that interrogates the inner lives and conflicts of Australians living in regional and rural areas. The first of these is Jennifer Mills’ Dyschronia (2018): a speculative novel which emphasises the post-industrial degradation of an Australian regional town through its depiction of what I term the “abiotic nonhuman” (in this case, a monstrous plaster sculpture of a squid and products of the asphalt industry) and its subversion of settler understandings of climate catastrophe. Dyschronia depicts the experiences of white, non-Indigenous Australians in an environmentally and economically devastated coastal town, suggesting that a lack of meaningful connection between settler-Australians and the nonhuman results in ecological crisis and a deep, irreversible disturbance of settler-colonial notions of home and livelihood. Similarly, Yumna Kassab’s Australiana (2022) portrays another regional Australian “everytown” upset by ecocatastrophe, this time in the form of extreme drought, and emphasises the role of nonhuman objects such as stones, wool and agricultural equipment in both validating and unsettling different communities’ connection to place. Whilst exploring similar themes to Mills’ novel, I argue that Australiana unsettles regional Australian settler narratives of belonging via both a parody of said narratives and the use of entangled storytelling practices.

While in recent years Australian crime fiction has gained some attention amongst both academics and reviewers, it is still missing from an area of study in which I believe it demands more notice—that is, ecocritical discussions of Australian fiction. This chapter investigates the idea of Australian crime fiction as a largely underexplored representation of the modern environmental crisis, discussing how Australian eco-crime fiction portrays the troubling relationship between human violence, the settler-colonial decimation of Australian environments and an increasing disconnect between Australian settler culture and a stable idea of home. Such a relationship indirectly alludes to the impact of a changing climate on Australian communities and ecosystems and suggests that popular genre fiction can contribute in profound ways to broader socio-environmental considerations. With this ecocritical framework in mind, this chapter analyses the nonhuman “phenomena” of drought and bushfire in Jane Harper’s The Dry (2016) and Chris Hammer’s Scrublands (2018), and what such novels reveal about the criminal nature of anthropogenic climate change and the settler-colonial destruction of Australian habitats.

This concluding chapter provides a final reflection on how ecofiction novels authored by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian writers represent a shift in the way that belonging and the nonhuman are perceived in broader environmental discourse of the twenty-first century. Here, I bring together my thoughts on how contemporary Australian authors are engaging in more nuanced ways with the nonhuman than previously and how this links with developing notions of belonging and unsettlement in the context of climate crisis and decolonial movements. I also consider whether this shift in nonhuman representation and the increased emphasis on unsettlement in the Australian postcolonial eco-novel reflects the possibilities of a more relational, less instrumentalist ecological future for postcolonial nations like Australia, or whether such possibilities are made miniscule in the face of still-widespread settler-colonial policy and cultural domination in Australia and elsewhere.