Subjugated Lands, Displaced Bodies: An Eco-critical Reading of Women and Migration in Selected Indian Fiction

Abstract

As migration emerges as a defining global phenomenon of the twenty-first century, much of the contemporary literature and critical discourse remains problematically focused on political borders, state-sanctioned conflict and juridical citizenship. This research paper proposes a vital reorientation of migration studies by centralizing the environment as an active, volatile agent in human displacement. By focusing on ecocritical perspectives within the literature of the Global South, this paper posits that climate-induced migration is profoundly non-neutral; it is inextricably bound to the systemic vectors of gender, caste and neocolonial exploitation. The central argument posits that the female “climate refugee” represents the ultimate intersection of ecological collapse and patriarchal displacement. To academically ground this analysis, the paper weaves together three advanced theoretical frameworks: Rob Nixon’s concept of “slow violence,” Stacy Alaimo’s theories of transcorporeality and posthumanism, and the ecofeminist critiques of Vandana Shiva and Val Plumwood. Through a sustained, exhaustive engagement with primary texts—Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and Gun Island, Mahasweta Devi’s Imaginary Maps, and Prayaag Akbar’s Leila - the analysis demonstrates how literature renders the attritional violence of climate change visible. As environments become increasingly uninhabitable due to anthropogenic interference, women are disproportionately alienated from traditional, biodiversity-tethered livelihoods and pushed into perilous, transient spaces, effectively becoming exiles of the Anthropocene.

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