Precarity and Resilience: An Ecofeminist Reading of the African Child in Fiction by Contemporary Women Writers

This dissertation responds to, and redresses, the neglect of the figure of the child, specifically the African child, in ecofeminist theory by focusing on recent fiction by women writers from the continent in which the child’s experience of precarity is foregrounded in relation to the slow violence perpetuated by legacies of extractivist colonialism and neo-colonialism, both historical and current. The Uncertainty of Hope (2006) by Zimbabwean writer, Valerie Tagwira, How Beautiful We Were (2021) by Cameroonian-American writer, Imbolo Mbue, and For The Mercy of Water (2012) by South African writer, Karen Jayes, portray the child as a figure of precarity while simultaneously affording imaginative scope to the child as figure of resilience, opposition and hope. The study argues that it is in literature, then, rather than in theoretical and critical discourse, that an ecofeminist ethics of environmental, social justice and care emerge. Such an ethics centre on the child as most vulnerable and yet potentially resilient and, consequently, a figure of resistance and hope. The dissertation holds that attention to novels such as these enables a reconfiguration of the scope and foci of ecofeminism, particularly in relation to African, environmental realities and crises as they pertain to children. The research questions that inform this study are as follows: (1) Without claiming a direct correlation between fictional portrayal and ‘the real world’ situation of children in Africa, what can be learnt from these novels about the precarity of the child as a consequence of neo-liberal extractivism and toxic colonialism? (2) What ecological points of crisis as a consequence of neo-imperial exploitation in Africa do these novels expose and condemn? (3) In what ways are narrative structure, point of view, characterisation, setting and figurative language employed in the novels in order to foreground the experience and voice of the child? (4) What limitations and gaps in current ecofeminist criticism and theory are surfaced by a child-centred ecofeminist reading of these novels and what would a child-centred, ecofeminism extrapolated from such a reading look like, particularly emerging from African contexts?

Grantor dc:publisher

Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Shiyoka, Selma Kauna

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ellis, Jeanne

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/135850

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/135850