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Postcolonial Environments: Nature, Culture and the Contemporary Indian Novel in English

后殖民环境：自然、文化和当代印度英语小说

基本信息

批准号：
AH/G005869/1
负责人：
Upamanyu Mukherjee
金额：
$ 2.63万
依托单位：
University of Warwick
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2009
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2009 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FG005869%2F1
关键词：
Postcolonial Environments Nature Culture Contemporary

项目摘要

Research Context: 'Environment' is a truly global buzzword now, appearing daily in everything from tabloid frontpages to U.N. reports. Yet, while one U.S. politician is acclaimed as a 'green warrior', others deny the very reality of 'global warming'; Indian and Chinese leaders decry 'conservationist concerns' and assert their nation's right to develop but activists from their own countries expose the massive environmental and social degradation that has resulted from such 'development'. These debates have marked those fields in the humanities and social sciences that claim urgent relevance to the global condition - such as environmental and postcolonial studies. Yet, until very recently, both these areas were dominated by concepts that grew out of the historical and environmental events of the 'global north'. Very little of the specificities of the 'global south' was used to challenge, test or modify these conceptual models. But this situation is fast changing, and both environmental and postcolonial studies now stand on the verge of rapid transformation. For example, 'deep ecological' concepts of nature are now giving way to 'social ecological' concepts arising out of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Again, 'postcolonial studies' is now questioning its founding concepts of migration, culture, history, nature by integrating an environmental component into all these enquiries. My research project aims to simultaneously account for these transformations, bring 'social ecology' and cultural studies into dialogue with each other and provide a theoretical model that can be used to investigate the relationship between the actually existing environmental facts and the cultural responses to it in the 'postcolonial' world. I take one such cultural response - the contemporary Indian novel in English, in order to illustrate my arguments. My analysis shows that environment is of key thematic and formal importance to this literature. The novels I look at repeatedly place the issues of human migration, city slums, deforestation, natural catastrophes, toxicity, in short, 'southern' environmental issues at the heart of their stories. At the same time, in order to encompass this vast and shifting canvass, they enter into conversations and exchanges with other cultural forms that surround them, such as theatre, music, films. By doing this, they produce formal innovations that separate them from canonical Euroepan and north American novels. In other words, it is contemporary Indian environmental reality that produce the exotic flair that is routinely attributed to Indian English language novels. I conclude the study by showing that this model of the relationship between environment, culture and history can also be applied to Africa and Latin America.'Research Questions: In my research project I aim to address a number of questions arising primarily out of the historical and material realities of the 'global south'- what is the relationship between the 'environmental' facts of deforestation, droughts, internal migration, urban slums, soil toxicity and the symbolic act we call literature? Is there a structural relationship between environment realities and cultural forms? If so, can we use the relationship between the environment and cultures of one area of the 'global south', contemporary india, as a model that will be relevant to the erst of the world? Research Outputs: I will produce a monograph-length study titled 'Postcolonial Environments: Nature, Culture and the Contemporary Indian Novel in English', which is contracted to be delivered to the publisher Palgrave Macmillan in March 2009 for publication later that year. Research Method: I will use historical archives, scientific studies, government policy documents and literary/cultural texts to show how environmental facts are understood, and how the specific form and structure of literary and cultural texts are shaped by this understanding.

研究背景：“环境”现在是一个真正的全球流行语，每天都会出现在从小报头版到联合国报告的各种内容中。然而，尽管一位美国政治家被誉为“绿色战士”，但其他人却否认“全球变暖”的现实。印度和中国领导人谴责“环境保护主义的担忧”，并主张国家的发展权，但本国的活动人士却揭露了这种“发展”造成的大规模环境和社会退化。这些辩论标志着那些声称与全球状况具有紧迫相关性的人文和社会科学领域——例如环境和后殖民研究。然而，直到最近，这两个领域都被源自“全球北方”的历史和环境事件的概念所主导。 “南半球”的特殊性很少被用来挑战、测试或修改这些概念模型。但这种情况正在迅速改变，环境研究和后殖民研究现在都处于快速转变的边缘。例如，自然的“深层生态”概念现在正在让位于亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲产生的“社会生态”概念。再次，“后殖民研究”现在正在通过将环境因素纳入所有这些调查来质疑其关于移民、文化、历史、自然的基本概念。我的研究项目旨在同时解释这些转变，使“社会生态学”和文化研究相互对话，并提供一个理论模型，可用于调查“后殖民”世界中实际存在的环境事实与对其的文化反应之间的关系。我选取了这样一种文化回应——当代印度英文小说，来说明我的论点。我的分析表明，环境对于该文献具有关键主题和形式重要性。我看过的小说反复将人类迁徙、城市贫民窟、森林砍伐、自然灾害、毒害问题，简而言之，“南方”环境问题置于故事的核心。与此同时，为了涵盖这个巨大且不断变化的画布，他们与周围的其他文化形式（例如戏剧、音乐、电影）进行对话和交流。通过这样做，他们产生了形式上的创新，使他们有别于典型的欧洲和北美小说。换句话说，正是当代印度的环境现实产生了通常归因于印度英语小说的异国风情。我在研究结论中指出，这种环境、文化和历史之间关系的模型也适用于非洲和拉丁美洲。研究问题：在我的研究项目中，我的目标是解决主要由“南半球”的历史和物质现实产生的一些问题——森林砍伐、干旱、内部移民、城市贫民窟、土壤毒性和我们称之为文学的象征性行为等“环境”事实之间的关系是什么？环境现实与文化形式之间是否存在结构性关系？如果是这样，我们是否可以使用“全球南方”的一个地区（当代印度）的环境与文化之间的关系作为与世界早期相关的模型？研究成果：我将撰写一篇专题研究，题为“后殖民环境：自然、文化和当代印度英文小说”，该研究合同将于 2009 年 3 月交付给出版商帕尔格雷夫·麦克米伦 (Palgrave Macmillan)，并于当年晚些时候出版。研究方法：我将利用历史档案、科学研究、政府政策文件和文学/文化文本来展示如何理解环境事实，以及这种理解如何塑造文学和文化文本的具体形式和结构。