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

Year 2024, Volume: 64 Issue: 1, 124 - 143, 25.06.2024

Hediye Özkan

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

Abstract

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.

Keywords

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

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

Abstract

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.

Keywords

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

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