From harm to harmony: Etel Adnan’s postcolonial ecological identity

This article presents a postcolonial ecocritical reading of three major works by Etel Adnan and examines how experiences of displacement inform her understanding of identity and her critique of anthropocentric worldviews. It argues that Adnan’s sustained engagement with the natural world allows her to reconceptualize the self as relational and embedded, rather than autonomous or sovereign. In distancing herself from identity formations rooted in fixed locales or exclusionary cultural frameworks, particularly those shaped by war and political conflict, Adnan turns to nature as a source of belonging and ethical orientation. Drawing on Susan Clayton’s concept of environmental identity, the article demonstrates how this form of identification cultivates responsibility toward both human and nonhuman worlds. The study ultimately suggests that Adnan’s work illuminates the capacity of dislocated subjects to articulate environmentally attentive modes of identity that support ecological awareness and collective responsibility.