Nayar, P. K. (2019). Ecoprecarity: Vulnerable Lives in Literature and Culture. Routledge

Abstract

The ever-growing awareness of ontological relationality between biotic and abiotic agents is starting
to change how humans relate to the non-human world. On the one hand, such an understanding of
the inherent interdependence of all things might serve as an invitation towards a more caring,
nurturing, and affective turn to the Other, be that human or non-human. On the other hand, the
anxieties about the fragility and contingency of life can reinforce the centuries-long belief that
“Nature” is an arch-nemesis and a wild entity that needs to be tamed (Merchant 1980, Shiva 1989),
often resulting in the over-coding of bio- and geo-engineering manias that produce visions of the
future shaped by chemical and technological debris and the subsequent romanticization of the thenmoribund “Nature.” Pramod K. Nayar’s Ecoprecarity: Vulnerable Lives in Literature and Culture (2019)