Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Published In

Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment

Keywords

Ecocriticism, Ecofeminism, Feminist economics, Slow violence, Rosa Montero, Spanish narrative

Abstract

This paper addresses Iberian ecocritical approaches and cultural responses to ecological degradation through an examination of Rosa Montero’s futuristic novels Lágrimas en la lluvia (2011) and its sequel El peso del corazón (2015). In these works, contaminated natural resources, cloning, and teleportation for interplanetary travel contribute to new social hierarchies, existential crises, and heightened xenophobia in Europe, now part of the United States of the Earth. This study places particular emphasis on the novels’ criticisms of a North-South divide, in which the use and distribution of natural resources reflects the inequitable burden of environmental contamination and economic exploitation on the world’s southern zones. Montero’s novels posit that interspecies alliances across different geographical regions respond to these inequities. In this analysis, Rob Nixon’s ecocritical work on slow environmental violence, Spanish economist Amaia Pérez Orozco’s writings on feminist economics and collaborative care, and the theory and activism of various ecofeminists underscore Montero’s critique of a global economic system that exploits the environment and the marginalized. These theorists and activists argue that social justice, sustainability, and a non-materialist conception of well-being must replace the dominant androcentric approaches to economics and to social relations, which foster growing inequity and environmental contamination.

Grant Information

Funding received from an Assumption College Faculty Development Grant

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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