Ecological ‘Self’ vs the Ecological ‘Other’: Indigenous Naga Ecotopia for the Dystopic World

Abstract

Critics have used the colonizer/colonized or the Global North/Global South binaries to restore human rights and freedom. But these planetary or ideological binaries –though theoretically convenient – might not be ecologically sufficient to deal with the ongoing sixth mass extinction (Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History). The need of the hour is to critique the existing knowledge systems (science, technology, politics) through the lens of eco-alterity, wherein every agent of environmental disaster is to be identified as the ecological ‘other.’ In this context, the unique indigenous participation of the ecological ‘selves’ is to be deciphered and disseminated: The indigenous ecotopias of the earth might provide insights into ecological sustenance, food sovereignty and coexistence. The present study, therefore, situates the relevance of exploring indigenous ecological knowledge systems by proposing eco-alterity as the tool to liberate victims of ‘slow violence’ (Nixon). In so doing, it seeks to make visible the unique ecotopia of Naga ecological natives – as represented in Kire’s novels – that has survived multiple forms of slow violence.