Capitalism Clothes it

Toxic Resilience and Undemocratization in the Face of Climate Change

Bibliographic Data

ID22011815
AuthorsLeonardo Chinchilla Mora (0000-0001-8265-2843, University of Helsinki, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume13
Issue1
Publication date2022-04-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEcozon European Journal of Literature Culture and Environment (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2171-9594 • E-ISSN: 2171-9594
PublisherUniversidad de Alcala (PUBLISHER • ES)
DOI10.37536/ecozona.2022.13.1.4375
OpenAlexW4229335222
LanguageEN
References cited10

This paper addresses the mechanisms by which capitalism thrives in the imagined climate crises in the works of Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow (2013) and Kim Stanley Robinson‘s New York 2140 (2017). More specifically, it approaches resilience as toxic resistance that allows capitalism to survive socio-economic and political forces around it. This article also seeks to uncover the ways in which such resilience deters the acknowledgement of capitalism as an unsustainable, life-threatening system. Furthermore, it scrutinizes the tension between public and private places to reveal capitalism’s undemocratic practices. This analysis first identifies the role of futurology as a technocratic resource in maintaining the capitalist system running for Odds Against Tomorrow as Mitchell’s professionalism is manipulated to perpetuate such a system. On the other hand, I correlate two models of place-connectedness with various economic terms described in New York 2140 to arrive at a hypothesis of how resilience becomes toxic in allowing the habitation of New York despite submerging progressively. The second half of this essay concentrates on public and private places in which Odds Against Tomorrow showcases the vitality of public places as they nurture democratic practices. It also demonstrates two possible courses of action after suffering from a climate crisis: recovery and perpetuation of corporate American habits or their relinquishment accompanied by the embracing of an agrarian lifestyle. Finally, in the case of New York 2140, the interplay between private and public places seek to demonstrate the social injustices brought about by eco-marginalization for which the undemocratic practices of capitalism also surface

Capitalism · Democracy · Environmental ethics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access