When Landscapes Inherit Loss: The Politics of Ecology in a Globalized World

Abstract: The paper entitled “When Landscapes Inherit Loss: The Politics of Ecology in a Globalized World” explores colonial and postcolonial exploitation of nature from an ecocritical perspective in Kiran Desai’s novel The Inheritance of Loss. The paper also dwells on the theory of ecocentrism to analyze the impact of neocolonialism and economic liberalization on man and nature with respect to migration and cultural alienation. Ecocriticism examines how human interaction with the natural world is portrayed in literary works. The novel explores individuals who are caught up in an ambivalent cultural and social ethos, and tries to demonstrate various forms of crises where environmental consciousness encounters with human greed and violence. The author talks about how human ways of life affect and have a huge impact on the environment. The novel clearly represents the fact that global capitalism is primarily defined by economic and environmental exploitation and the benefits of capitalist growth have been unequally divided, providing prosperity and progress to only a few people, while the majority is made to bear the brunt of its social, cultural and environmental consequences. Keywords: Ecocriticism, Ecology, Culture, Landscape, Nature, Globalization.