Illumination of Environmental Despoilation and Socio-Economic Subversions in Anglohone Literary Texts

Abstract

The current environmental crisis is traversing socio-economic and political discourses across all disciplines. In literary studies, researches have been carried out on environmental quagmire in Africa. The concerns of these studies range from environmental degradation occasioned by reckless exploitation of resources, the changing images of the environment to representation of the neocolonial destruction of the environment among other issues. However, the examination of the emerging subversive socio-economic activities which not only pit the global capitalists against the locals but also escalate environmental crisis remains unexplored. This paper therefore explores A Casualty of Power (2016) and Oil on Water (2010) as testaments of the locals’ subversive activities such oil theft, violent sabotage, prostitution, kidnapping and ransom seeking as well as fear mongering as means of subverting the infallible image and hegemonic powers of the global capitalists. These activities cause more disastrous environmental despoliation never witnessed before. The choice of the texts is informed by the fact that although the extractive activities are conducted by the British and Chinese owned and run corporations, the texts portray a similar pattern of thought in terms of resource exploitation in Africa. They show the darker side of resource exploitation by the global capitalists in the continent. Using postcolonial ecocritical theory and adopting analytical research design as an analysis method, the study establishes that through the subversive activities, the infallible hegemonic image of the global capitalists is overturned, and the locals disempower the global powers that are responsible environmental ruination in Africa.