Interconnectedness of the Local and Global in Kingsolver’s Select Writings

Ecofeminists and Deep Ecologists reject the androcentric and anthropocentric hubris and espouse a theory of interconnectedness between all forms of life on earth. Ecofeminists also oppose all forms of oppression across the intersectional identities of race, class, gender, region, and nation. While the interconnectedness can be seen as a feeling of empathy towards all oppressed beings, nature and animals included, it can also be extended to the realm of, as is apparent in, the causes and effects of ecological phenomena on a global scale. The proposed paper would attempt to read Barbara Kingsolver's select essays from High Tide in Tucson and Small Wonder that discuss a range of interconnected environmental issues ranging from species/habitat/wilderness conservation, industrial capitalisminduced consumer culture, its effect such as massive industrial pollution, global climate change and their disastrous repercussions. Kingsolver is a contemporary American author who sets most of her works in the southern/ south western United States, around local socio-ecological issues. However, they can also be related to global environmental issues, as well as local issues in any part of the globe, thereby emphasizing the idea of interconnectedness in terms of causes and effects. Ironically, it is also in the same concept of interconnectedness that Kingsolver pins her hopes on. The present paper would attempt a reading of Kingsolver's essays in the framework of environmental justice theories