Eighteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

As a result of extensive periods of political and economic instability, many Caribbean nations suffer ecological consequences from both within and without. In addition to facing myriad local problems such as pesticide poisoning and dysfunctional sewage infrastructure, inhabitants of the Caribbean must also reckon with the specter of climate change as it wreaks devastation with increasing force and frequency. As low-lying tropical islands, the Caribbean will be (and already is) among the first to face the worst events caused by anthropogenic climate change. In response, Caribbean theorists and novelists have produced an extensive corpus that centers around novel, non-Western ways of living more sustainably. Caribbean science fiction, heretofore little studied, grapples with the region’s contentious past and present while also speculating on its tenuous future. Whether set in space or in Europe, Caribbean sci-fi authors draw on Caribbean tropes such as creolization to imagine new, more sustainable modalities that incorporate the ecological into the urban, rather than adhering to the classic city nature dichotomy. Such speculation, this paper argues, will prove vital as humanity must shift toward radically different ways of “being-in-the-city” to survive the fight against climate change. My readings will build on contemporary work in urban political ecology that challenges traditional conceptions of both “city” and “sustainability.”