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Accepted Paper:
Aestheticising Ecological Toxicities in Africa: Revitalising Planetary Well-being Quests in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Rwĩmbo rwa Njũkĩ
James Wachira
(University of Nairobi)
Ecological toxicities remain a threat to planetary well-being. Such a truism draws in my interest to read Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Rwĩmbo rwa Njũkĩ (2013) as an invitation to revitalise indigenous knowledge on planetary well-being. .
Paper long abstract:
Ecological toxicities remain a threat to planetary well-being. Such a truism draws in my interest to explore how literary productions in Africa commit to planetary well-being. To realize this objective, I will offer a close reading of the aestheticisation of the materiality of ecological toxicities in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Rwĩmbo rwa Njũkĩ (2013). My analysis zooms in on how that two teenagers mobilise a song-narrative to elaborate the consequences of disregarding indigenous knowledges on the killing of bees. The narrative juxtaposes two categories of actors occasioning ecological toxicities. On the one hand are missionaries who introduced toxins to kill bees and butterflies found in ecosystems in Africa. On the other hand, are Africans who embrace(d) the use of the toxic substances on their farms without interrogating their impacts on their ecologies. This scandal plays out in the teenagers’ reminiscence of the potency of the song-narrative. The song-narrative speaks to the histories on food insecurity in Africa because of embracing the (mis)use of the agro-chemicals in farming. I, therefore, read Rwĩmbo rwa Njũkĩ as an invitation to revitalise indigenous knowledge on planetary well-being.