Life, Death and Sustainability through Indigenous Literature

Abstract

Understanding sustainability in the Anthropocene through ecocritical discourses help us to deal with today’s environmental angst. Indigenous literature critically interprets the effects of cultural domination on Indigenous communities. This paper looks at the works of two Indigenous authors from Northeast India to substantiate how literature through its creativity functions as force/medium of renewal and self-criticism of ‘cultural ecologies’, preserve oral narratives, utilize traditional ecological knowledge, use of conceptual categories like ‘ecopsychology’ and ‘topophilia’ in Indigenous literature to reformulate our ideas of life, death and sustainability.

Keywords

• Cultural ecology. Ecocriticism. Indigeneity. Northeast India. Sustainability. Traditional knowledge