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Research

Humans as Not So Humans: Human–Nonhuman Cross-Cultural Interrelations in the Contemporary Novel

Application summary

This study locates human–nonhuman interrelations at the intersection of social transformation and the dynamics of dualism between humans and nonhumans in cross-cultural contexts. The study aims to explore the way human-nonhuman interdependence or lack of it affects human identity in relation to six contemporary novels from India, Finland, and the Unites States, namely Arundhati Roy’s "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" (2017), Indra Sinha’s "Animal’s People" (2007), Emmi Itäranta’s "Memory of Water" (2012), Risto Isomäki’s "The Sands of Sarasvati" (2005), J. L. Morin’s "Nature’s Confession" (2015), and Barbara Kingsolver’s "Flight Behavior" (2012). Therefore, the research reappraises such dualist paradigms that have not only branded nonhumans as Others but also contributed to the formation of human identity in separation from nature/nonhumans. In so doing, the research employs six cross-disciplinary theoretical frameworks such as human–animal studies, disability and animal rights studies, transactional bioregionalism, material ecocriticism, ecological citizenship, and posthuman ecocriticism. By offering an ecocritical analysis of human–nonhuman interdependence as represented in these novels, the research aims to engage in a dialectic involving a number of interrelated factors such as cultural diversity, social change and cultural identity.

This was a three-year-postdoctoral study, conducted at the University of Eastern Finland, which focused on human-nonhuman interrelations in Finnish, Indian, and American contexts. For this purpose, the research explored human identity as affected by human-nonhuman interactions in relation to six novels from India, Finland, and the Unites States, namely Arundhati Roy’s "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" (2017), Indra Sinha’s "Animal’s People" (2007), Emmi Itäranta’s "Memory of Water" (2012), Risto Isomäki’s "The Sands of Sarasvati" (2005), J. L. Morin’s "Nature’s Confession" (2015), and Barbara Kingsolver’s "Flight Behavior" (2012). In the first year, the research explored the way bodily differences such as intersex bodies and disabled bodies in Roy’s "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness “and Sinha’s "Animal’s People" can exacerbate the process of Othering and affect the sense of belonging in Indian context. In so doing, the study focused on disability studies and transactional bioregional research to explore the way human Otherness has been connected to their bodily semblances to animality. In the second year, the study analysed the way bodily and spiritual identification with natural elements assist to cope with climate challenges in Itäranta’s "Memory of Water" and Isomäki’s "The Sands of Sarasvati". Here the research employed materialist feminist and eco-spiritual human-water interrelation to analyse women’s finding a sense of place during climate crisis in Finnish context. In the final year, the study focused on human-machine hybrid assemblages and animal’s changing behaviour during climate change with references to Morin’s "Nature’s Confession" and Kingsolver’s "Flight Behavior". Drawing upon posthuman material perception of human-nonhuman bodily and cognitive entanglement, the study showed the way individual material interaction with the environment produces a post-cosmopolitan sense of place in American context.

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