Political Ecologies of Futurity: Storytelling Plantation Afterlives, Climate Erasures, and Socioecological Justice

Political Ecologies of Futurity: Storytelling Plantation Afterlives, Climate Erasures, and Socioecological Justice-examines the entanglements of memory, place, and nature in the face of global socioecological transformation. Speaking from a range of disciplinary perspectives and drawing on different epistemological and methodological approaches, the chapters examine the plurality of climate change geographies. As painful as they are, the erasure of landscapes that are artefacts of coloniality, racial capitalism, and environmental injustice does not herald placid futures. Erasure can make the present sterile, allowing for apolitical visions of the future to manifest, futures in which marginalized communities are not present. This diminishes prospects for climate justice or any sense of equitable futurity.
With ten chapters-featuring case studies from five countries and three distinct regions of the United States-along with an Introduction and Conclusion by the editors, 2 original poems, artistic sketch, and an Afterword from Mimi Sheller, this volume creatively demonstrates the potential of storytelling for making sense of climate change and the ecological politics of futures beyond the plantationocene. That is to say, the role storytelling can play in helping us understand the complex temporalities of socioecological transformation.

Alex A. Moulton is an assistant professor of geography and environmental science at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY) and a member of the faculty in the earth and environmental sciences program at The Graduate School and University Center of CUNY.

Dylan M. Harris is an assistant professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS).