This study explores the environmental challenges of the Niger Delta area of Nigeria especially as it affects non-humans as a subaltern group. The environmental challenges and devastation of the region is consequent upon the unregulated and unprofessional exploitation of petroleum product. Over the years, the environmental devastation by multinational oil firms in the Niger Delta region has gained prominent attention from Nigeria literary writers and critics. However, it is worthy of note that most of these writers and critics are majorly interested in the negative or positive effects of oil exploration and exploitation on humans. They either highlight the benefits of the venture or lament its negative effects on human’s means of subsisting in the region. This study will therefore shift attention to the representation of non-humans in Nigerian literary production, and analyse how the exploration and exploitation of petroleum products in the Niger Delta affects non-humans in the region as depicted in the Nigerian novels that serves as primary texts for this study. To do this effectively, we shall examine the relationship that exists between humans and non-humans as portrayed in Helon Habila’s Oil on Water (2012) and Lawrence Amaeshi’s Sweet Crude Odyssey (2017) as well as advocate for environmental justice for the subalterns. The analysis shall be anchored on the subaltern theory which we shall draw upon to include non-humans in the class of subalterns and we shall also draw instances from the novels to justify the classification of non-humans as ecological subalterns. Above all, we propose Murray Bookchin’s social ecological theory as a base to advocate for justice for the subalterns. The study found that imminent danger abounds if urgent measures are not taken to care for and protect non-human members of the ecology.
This study explores the concept of subaltern and how its meaning has evolved over the years within the broader scope of postcolonial theory. The study shall trace the concept of subaltern from its anthropocentric meaning in Antonio Gramsci’s writings to Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Spivak’s ideological perspectives. We shall also trace its inroad into the ecocritical study in the works of Michael Egan and Sergio Ruiz Cayuela while maintaining its anthropocentric leaning. The study shall further attempt a redefinition of the subaltern concept to accommodate non-humans in the class of the subordinated social group. Bearing in mind the anthropocentric leaning of the concept of the subaltern, which excludes non-human members of the ecology, we shall redefine the term from its previous usage in environmental literary studies and expand it to include non-humans as a subordinated group. The study shall analyse the relationship between humans and non-humans to determine if non-humans are treated as subordinates or worse than subordinated humans. The study shall draw instances from Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist (2006) to justify the classification of non-humans as the ultimate ecological subalterns of the Niger Delta Environment. We shall consider human relationships with non-humans (land, air, water, animals, vegetation, sea lives) to determine their status as subalterns. The crux of the study is basically to expand the scope of the subaltern theory by analysing the environmental despoliation prevalent in the oil-rich Niger Delta environments of Nigeria.
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