MATERNAL ECOLOGIES VS. THE LOGIC OF DOMINATION: REIMAGINING AGENCY AND SURVIVANCE IN 21ST-CENTURY ECOFEMINIST NARRATIVES

Abstract

The twenty-first century represents a critical juncture in the evolution of environmental literature, as the speculative anxieties of previous generations have transitioned into a cumulative, global reality. This report provides an exhaustive analysis of the "ecofeminist reimagining" of climate catastrophes within contemporary fiction, investigating how literary narratives serve as a transformative space for challenging the patriarchal, capitalist, and colonial underpinnings of the Anthropocene. By examining a diverse corpus of 21st-century texts—including Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness, Imbolo Mbue’s How Beautiful We Were, Suyi Davies Okungbowa’s Lost Ark Dreaming, and Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book—this research identifies a shift from traditional anthropocentric survivalism toward a paradigm of intersectional care ethics, relational accountability, and trans corporeality. The analysis explores the theoretical transition from essentialist 20th-century ecofeminism to the 21st-century concept of the "(m)Anthropocene," a term highlighting the white, male-dominant, and extractivist drivers of planetary degradation. Furthermore, this study elucidates how formal narrative innovations—such as "we-narratives," "petro-magic-realism," and "interspecies focalization"—function as tools for collective climate witnessing and the subversion of the "logic of domination". Ultimately, the report argues that contemporary climate fiction (cli-fi) reimagines catastrophe not merely as a terminal disaster but as a krisis—a temporal continuum of decision-making that demands a radical restructuring of human and more-than-human relations.