Environmental Exploitation in the Colonial Period: An Ecocritical Analysis of Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Buru Quartet

Abstract

Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Buru Island Tetralogy (The Buru Quartet), consisting of four novels, provides deep insights into the social, political, and implicit ecological impacts of colonialism in Indonesia. This research aims to analyse the themes of environmental exploitation narrated in the novels, providing an ecocritical perspective on colonial practices and their impact on environmental sustainability and social justice. This research method uses an ecocritical framework approach with an in-depth reading of the novel's text. This approach explores and interprets how Toer portrays colonial history and its impact on the environment. The results show that an ecocritical study of the Buru Quartet reveals the complex interactions between humans, political systems, and the ecological environment monopolised by Dutch colonialism. Although the novel's main focus is racial and social injustice, it also includes ecological aspects, such as exploiting natural resources through forced cultivation by Dutch colonials, drastically changing the local landscape and biodiversity. This study reveals how colonialism was not only socially and politically oppressive but also played a crucial role in damaging the ecology of colonised areas. The implications of this study are mainly related to the importance of understanding literature as a means of reflection and critique on environmental and colonial issues. In the current global context, where issues of exploitation and environmental degradation are still highly relevant, works such as The Buru Quartet offer important insights into how historical and ecological narratives can converge to critique environmentally unsustainable development models.