CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACTS ON SOUTH ASIA: AN ECO-CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE BY KIM STANLEY ROBINSON
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18929708Keywords:
Climate Change, South Asia, Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for The Future, Climate Fiction, Ecocriticism, Postcolonial Environmental Studies, Climate Justice, Socio-Political Vulnerability, Human ResilienceAbstract
This paper analyses The Ministry for the Future (2020) by Kim Stanley Robinson using environmental Eco-critical and postcolonial lens to explore how climate change and socio-political vulnerabilities in South Asia are represented. The study identifies the specific exposure of the region to severe weather events, environmental degradation, and social and economic disproportions, and therefore examines the mediatory role of literature in ethical, political, and human responses to environmental crises. The study adopts a qualitative, interpretive approach incorporating close reading along with thematic analysis concentrating on the strategies of narration, imagery, and textual representation of floods, heatwave, migration and the institutional response. The results demonstrate that Robinson anticipates the unequal climate changing pressure upon the marginalized communities, points out to systemic inequalities, and underlines shared ethical accountability and adaptative governance. The novel incorporates the domains of science, policy, and ethics through polyphonic storytelling aimed at grappling with the imperfection of the local and the interference of the global forces. As the analysis shows, cli-fi is not just mirroring environmental forces but is also developing a critical approach, morality and climate justice activism. The paper highlights how literature has a potential to mediate between scientific knowledge, social-political critique, and ethical imagination and suggests a transformative prism through which the climate threats in South Asia and human strengths may be interpreted. These aspects of understanding are valuable to ecocriticism and climate fiction, as well as postcolonial environmental studies, whether narrative fiction plays a crucial role in the formation of communal conscience and the advocacy of international responsibility.
Downloads
References
Barry, P. (2009). Beginning theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory (3rd ed.). Manchester University Press.
Bradley, A. (2020). The Ministry for the Future. New York: Orbit.
Buell, L. (2005). The future of environmental criticism: Environmental crisis and literary imagination. Blackwell.
Canavan, G. (2021). Climate fiction and climate justice: Critical approaches to Kim Stanley Robinson. Routledge.
Chakrabarty, D. (2009). The climate of history: Four theses. Critical Inquiry, 35(2), 197–222.
Chakrabarty, D. (2021). Anthropocene debates and climate justice in literature. Cambridge University Press.
Creswell, J. W. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approach (5th ed.). Sage Publications.
Garrard, G. (2012). Ecocriticism (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Glotfelty, C., & Fromm, H. (1996). The ecocriticism reader: Landmarks in literary ecology. University of Georgia Press.
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Heise, U. K. (2008). Sense of place and sense of planet: The environmental imagination of the global. Oxford University Press.
Hulme, M. (2009). Why we disagree about climate change: Understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge University Press.
Johns-Putra, A. (2019). Climate change in literature and literary studies: From cli-fi to ecocriticism. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 10(1), e568.
Morton, T. (2013). Hyperobjects: Philosophy and ecology after the end of the world. University of Minnesota Press.
Nixon, R. (2011). Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Harvard University Press.
Robinson, K. S. (2020). The Ministry for the Future. Orbit.
Sultana, F. (2022). Climate change and social vulnerability in South Asia: Perspectives from environmental humanities. Springer.
Trexler, A. (2015). Anthropocene fiction: The novel in a time of climate change. University of Virginia Press.
Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). Sage Publications.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Muhammad Islam, Prof. Dr. Iesar Ahmad (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
