Anthropocentric Speciesism among Oppressive Structures in The Broken Earth by Nora K. Jemisin

Volume 7, Issue 2, April 2023     |     PP. 93-118      |     PDF (298 K)    |     Pub. Date: February 26, 2023
DOI: 10.54647/sociology841007    86 Downloads     5161 Views  

Author(s)

Shohreh Haji Mola Hosein, PhD of English Literature, Department of English Language & Literature, Kish International Campus, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract
Written by Nora K. Jemisin, the trilogy of The Broken Earth prefigures the theme of anthropocentric speciesism (oppressive treatment of ordinary humans to bioengineered humans and nonhumans) and almost all kinds of anthropocentric oppressions including racism, dehumanization, colonialism, slavery, ethnocentrism, classism, sexism, and historical disease of cannibalism. Multigenre trilogy is a science fantasy and epic geology divulging anthropocentrist humans’ abuse of the earth, downgraded races, children, women, and all marginalized species. Cruelties of anthropocentrist human races to other humans, other species, and abusive colonization of family earth (anthropocentric naturism) are the roots of eco-social crises in the trilogy. Following the footsteps of social ecological feminists such as Greta Gaard, Karren J. Warren, Val Plumwood, and Ronnie Zoe Hawkins, and ecocriticism mottos of Stephen T. Newmyer and Lawrence Buell and also postcolonial and post-racial theories of Frantz Fanon and Andreja Zevnik, this article presents interdisciplinary study of the trilogy to undermine some known and unknown policies of anthropocentrism and disclose how intermingling branches of anthropocentrism (anthropocentric naturism and anthropocentric superior humanism) and its sub-divisions make new oppressive sub-classes called environmental anthropocentric speciesism, environmental racism, environmental ethnocentrism, environmental classism, and environmental sexism. It exposes how extreme racism and colonialism are turned into anthropocentric speciesism through dehumanization of the downgraded. It intends to show how such revenge and slave fantasy forms a climate change epic to warn humans against anthropocentrism. Revealing the damaging effects of anthropocentrism and oppressive political and economic procedures on the earth and species, it foregrounds eco-social feminist viewpoints planning democrat- based society, social political solidarity, social environmental justice, gender equality, and interspecies justice as indispensable solutions for the survival of the world.

Keywords
Anthropocentric Speciesism, Colonialism, Dehumanization, Environmental Anthropocentric Speciesism, Environmental Racism and Classism, Interspecies Justice, Racism, Social Environmental Justice

Cite this paper
Shohreh Haji Mola Hosein, Anthropocentric Speciesism among Oppressive Structures in The Broken Earth by Nora K. Jemisin , SCIREA Journal of Sociology. Volume 7, Issue 2, April 2023 | PP. 93-118. 10.54647/sociology841007

References

[ 1 ] Ball, Karyn. “Primal Revenge and Other Anthropomorphic Projections for Literary History”. New Literary History, vol. 39, no. 3, 2008, PP. 533-563. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20533101.
[ 2 ] Belkhir, Jean Ait. “Dose Classism Help Us to Understand Class Oppression”? Race, Gender & Class Journal, vol. 15, no. 1/2, 2008, pp. 9-23. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41675355.
[ 3 ] Benton, Raymond JR. “Environmental Racism, Consumption, and Sustainability- Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice”. Business Ethics Quarterly, vol.12, no. 1, 2002, pp. 83-98. JSTOR, www. jstor.org/stable/3857650.
[ 4 ] Buell, Lawrence. Writing for an Endangered World; Literature, Culture, and Environment in the U.S and Beyond. The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2001.
[ 5 ] Callicott, Baird J. “Non-anthropocentric Value Theory and Environmental Ethics”. American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 4, 1984, pp.299-309. JSTOR, www.jsro.org/stable/200114060.
[ 6 ] Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Edinburgh: Blackwood’s Magazine, 1899.
[ 7 ] Cole, Mike. Racism, a Critical Analysis. London: Pluto Press, 2016.
[ 8 ] D’ Avanzo, Charlene. “Climate Fiction as Environmental Education”. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, vol. 99, no. 4, 2018, PP.1-3. JSTOR, ww.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26501940.
[ 9 ] Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1963.
[ 10 ] Fredrickson, George M. Racism: A Short History. New Jersey: Princeton U P, 2002.
[ 11 ] Gaard, Greta. “Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism”. Feminist Formations, vol.23, no.2, 2011, PP.2.doi.org/10.1353/ff.2011.0017.
[ 12 ] Hawkins, Ronnie Zoe. “Ecofeminism and Nonhumans: Continuity, Difference, Dualism, and Domination”. Hypatia, vol. 13, no. 1, 1998, PP.158-197. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3810611.
[ 13 ] Hobson, Janell. “Between History and Fantasy: Harriet Tubman in the Artistic and Popular Imaginary”. JSTOR, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, vol. 12, no. 2, 2014, PP. 50-77. Doi.org/10.2979/meridians.12.2.50.
[ 14 ] Jemisin, Nora K. The Fifth Season. E-Book, Green Ronin, 2015.
[ 15 ] Jemisin, Nora K. The Obelisk Gate. E-Book, Green Ronin, 2016.
[ 16 ] Jemisin, Nora K. The Stone Sky. E-Book, Green Ronin, 2017.
[ 17 ] Kortenkamp, V. Katherine and Colleen F Moore. “Eco-centrism and Anthropocentrism: Moral Reasoning about Ecological Commons Dilemmas”. Journal of Environmental sychology, 2001, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 261-272. doi.org/10.1006/jevp.2001.0205.
[ 18 ] McClelland, Richard T. “The Pleasures of Revenge”. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, vol. 31, no. 3/4, 2010, PP. 195-235, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43854277.
[ 19 ] Newmyer, Stephen T. Animals in Greek and Roman Thought. E-Book, Oxford shire: Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2010.
[ 20 ] Miller Jim. “Post-Apocalyptic Hoping: Octavia Butler’s Dystopian/ Utopian Vision”. Science Fiction Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 1998, PP. 336-360, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4240705.
[ 21 ] Mortensen, Ellen. “The Fury’s Revenge: An Ecofeminist Reading of Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead”. Scando-Slavica, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, vol. 67, no. 2, 2021, PP. 227-246. doi. Org/ 10.1080/00806765.2021.1994002.
[ 22 ] Orwell, George. “Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays”. New Writing, vol. 1, no. 2,1936. www. Orwell foundation. Com >…
[ 23 ] Phillips, Dave. “Neanderthals Are Still Human!”. The Institute for Creation Research, Acts and Facts Impact, vol. 29, no. 5, 2000.www.icr.org> article> neanderthal…
[ 24 ] Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Routledge, 1993.
[ 25 ] Saldivar, Roman. “Historical Fantasy, Speculative Realism, and Postrace Aesthetics in Contemporary American Fiction”. American Literary History, vol. 23, no. 3, 2011, PP. 574-599. doi:10. 1093/alh/ajr026.
[ 26 ] Warren, J. Karen. “Taking Empirical Data Seriously”. Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature, edited by Karen J. warren, Indiana University Press, 1997. pp. 3-23.
[ 27 ] Zevnik, Andreja. “Postcolonial Society as Social Fantasy: Black Communities Trapped Between Racism and a Struggle for Political Recognition”. Political Psychology, vol. 20, no. 20, 2017.doi: 10.1111/pops.12430.
[ 28 ] William, Christopher. “Environmental Victimization and Violence” Aggression and Violence Behavior, vol. 1, no. 3, 1996, pp. 191-204.doi.org/10.1016/1359-1789(95)00015-1.