Living Waters, Thinking Forests: A Study of Non-Human Intelligence in Posthuman Climate Narratives

Akarshi Srivastava

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i06.61287

Living Waters, Thinking Forests: A Study of Non-Human Intelligence in Posthuman Climate Narratives

Author(s)	Ms. Akarshi Srivastava
Country	India
Abstract	This study examines how eco posthumanism reshapes ecological crisis narratives in contemporary South Asian and African fiction by emphasizing the agency of non-human beings. Moving away from an anthropocentric worldview, eco posthumanism recognizes rivers, forests, animals, insects, and microbial life as active participants in narrative meaning. To explore this shift, the research analyses four significant literary texts: Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2004), Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift (2019), Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon (2014), and Helon Habila’s Oil on Water (2011). These works represent ecologically fragile regions shaped by climate change, colonial histories, and extractive industries, where natural environments often act with intention, resistance, or memory. The methodology follows qualitative textual analysis supported by posthuman theory, new materialism, ecocriticism, and postcolonial environmental studies. Through close reading and comparative interpretation, the study traces how non human entities influence human actions, shape emotional landscapes, disrupt political structures, and redefine survival. Whether it is the tides and tigers of the Sundarbans, the collective voice of mosquitoes, the sentient ocean of Lagos, or the wounded wetlands of the Niger Delta, each non human presence reveals forms of agency that destabilize human centered control. The findings show that these novels do not portray nature as a passive setting but as a dynamic force that participates in shaping the narrative. The selected texts present climate change as a shared multispecies crisis and highlight interdependence between humans and other forms of life. The study concludes that eco-posthumanism offers a powerful framework for understanding contemporary climate fiction, opening new possibilities for multispecies ethics, ecological responsibility, and a more inclusive vision of planetary coexistence.
Keywords	Eco-posthumanism, climate fiction, ecocriticism, environmental humanities, new -materialism, Anthropocene narratives.
Field	Sociology > Linguistic / Literature
Published In	Volume 7, Issue 6, November-December 2025
Published On	2025-11-21
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i06.61287
Short DOI	https://doi.org/hbb4g8

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Living Waters, Thinking Forests: A Study of Non-Human Intelligence in Posthuman Climate Narratives

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