Ecological Life Writings from India

Exploring four ecological Dalit and Adivasi life narratives from the southernmost Indian state of Kerala, this book delves into ruptures and disruptions to the authors' relationships with nature as brought about by developmental policies and the production methods of modern society. With social marginality employed as a key analytical lens, Shalini M. and Moncy Mathew shed light on the environmental and societal protest narratives of four extraordinary activists who contend with such issues as landlessness and the resulting chaos and violence, the fight for clean water and the changes to delicate ecosystems. Positioned against a history of environmentalism in India and invoking ideas from ecocriticism, gender, life writing and postcolonial studies, the authors cover the works Janu: The Life Story of C. K. Janu, Mayilamma: A Life, My Life Among Mangrove by Kallen Pokkudan and Saleena Prakkanam's Chengara Strike and My Life. Through its examination of told-to narratives, the book foregrounds stories previously excluded from life narrative scholarship whilst highlighting pressing transnational and transcultural anxieties of global importance.