Waves of Ecocriticism: A Critique
Dr. Dilip K Madhesiya,
Assistant Professor,
Department of English,
Jananayak Chandrashekhar University,
Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Abstract: Ecocriticism has expanded from a narrow focus on nature writing to an
interdisciplinary practice that examines how humans imagine, narrate, and
inhabit the nonhuman world. Often described through a four-wave framework, the
field’s first wave foregrounded nature writing and environmental realism, while
the second wave, influenced by poststructuralism and ecological justice, centered
marginalised communities and the politics of representation. The third wave
introduced global and materialist perspectives, highlighting transnational
environmental entanglements. The current fourth wave explores digital ecologies
and multispecies ontologies, emphasising how technology and nonhuman agencies
reshape ecological understanding. This paper modestly reconsiders these waves
not as strict chronological stages but as overlapping conceptual currents that
continually reshape ecocritical methods in the field. Although the wave model
clarifies the field’s diversification, it can obscure tensions, such as the
first wave’s limited political scope, the second wave’s difficulty reconciling
cultural critique with ecological science, and the third wave’s tendency toward
abstract planetarity. The fourth wave, while promising new technological and
multispecies insights, struggles to translate theory into practical engagement.
Rather than a linear progression, ecocriticism is better understood as a
dynamic confluence of ideas—an estuarial meeting of diverse approaches that
collectively rethink human–nonhuman relations amid an escalating ecological
crisis.
Keywords: Ecocriticism, Wave Framework,
Interdisciplinarity, Environmental Justice, Multispecies Ontologies
I
Ecocriticism is a literary
approach introduced by the American critic William Rueckert in his essay
“Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism.” The term refers to the
application of ecological ideas and principles to the analysis of literary
texts. Ecocriticism focuses on how literature portrays nature, energy systems,
and the complex relationship between humans and the environment. Rueckert
argued that literary works are not merely artistic expressions but can
influence the way people think about and interact with the natural world. He
believed that literature has the power to raise environmental awareness and
contribute meaningfully to responses to ecological crises.
Although the term was introduced
in 1978, and recognised as an academic movement mainly in the 1990s, especially
with the establishment of the Association for the Study of Literature and
Environment (ASLE), has now emerged as one of the most versatile and rapidly
evolving areas within literary and cultural studies, rooted in an effort to
rethink human relations with nature and the environment in the face of
ecological crisis. From its early focus on nature writing to its current
engagement with global ecologies, digital environments, and multispecies
studies, ecocriticism has expanded far beyond its initial disciplinary
boundaries. Scholars frequently describe this growth through the metaphor of
“waves”—a heuristic that organises ecocritical development into successive,
though overlapping, phases. Although useful, this metaphor simultaneously
simplifies the complexity of the field. A critical examination of these waves
reveals that ecocriticism’s evolution resembles not a sequence of discrete
movements but a shifting estuary where currents intermingle, collide, and
reshape the landscape of environmental thought. This critique seeks to
illuminate both the contributions and limitations of the wave model, arguing
for a more fluid understanding of ecocriticism’s intellectual trajectory.
II
Early ecocriticism is often
associated with the first wave, roughly spanning the 1990s through the early
2000s, when scholars such as Cheryll Glotfelty and Lawrence Buell institutionalised
the field by foregrounding nature writing as a legitimate subject of literary
analysis. Glotfelty’s declaration that ecocriticism is “the study of the
relationship between literature and the physical environment” (xix) set the
tone for an approach grounded in close readings of texts that directly
represent nature. Influential early works tended to focus on Anglo-American
writers such as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Annie Dillard, whose
writings are considered exemplary of environmental consciousness.
The first wave made significant
contributions. It encouraged the revaluation of texts traditionally dismissed
as non-fiction or sentimental, foregrounding ecological awareness as a critical
lens. The pastoral tradition, long a staple of literary study, has received
renewed attention for its capacity to reflect cultural attitudes toward land
use, rural life, and wilderness. Lawrence Buell’s The Environmental
Imagination was especially influential for its argument that works like
Thoreau’s Walden could shape not only reading practices but
environmental ethics (2). The first wave thus brought environmental concerns
into the mainstream of literary scholarship.
However, the limitations of this
wave are equally significant. Its concentration on white, male, Anglo-American
writers reproduces existing canonical biases. Its focus on wilderness
reinforced romanticised ideals that did not reflect the lived experiences of
many communities, particularly indigenous peoples and urban populations.
Additionally, by emphasising descriptive nature writing, the first wave
sometimes neglected the political and socio-economic dimensions of
environmental degradation. Environmental justice movements, Indigenous
resistance, and colonial histories were often peripheral to early ecocritical
inquiry. As Rob Nixon argues, environmental issues frequently manifest as “slow
violence,” disproportionately affecting marginalised communities—an insight
largely absent from the first wave (2). The initial formulation of ecocriticism
thus risked being apolitical, pastoral, and insufficiently global in scope.
III
The second wave of ecocriticism
emerged in response to the limitations of the first wave, incorporating
poststructuralist theory, environmental justice, and questions of race, class,
gender, and colonialism. This shift reflects broader academic movements in
cultural studies and postcolonial theory, as well as increased recognition of
environmental inequalities. Second-wave ecocriticism, therefore, expanded the
field’s political and cultural scope while challenging the notion of nature as
a pristine, apolitical space.
Environmental justice is central
to this phase. Scholars have argued that environmental degradation cannot be
understood without examining the structures of power that disproportionately
harm marginalised communities. Writers of colour, indigenous authors, and
postcolonial voices were brought into the ecocritical canon, from Leslie Marmon
Silko and Linda Hogan to Ken Saro-Wiwa and Arundhati Roy. Ecocriticism thus
began to address issues such as toxic waste siting, climate colonialism and
land dispossession. As scholars have noted, environmentalism without justice
risks perpetuating exclusionary narratives of nature as a space separate from
human social realities.
Simultaneously, second-wave
ecocriticism embraced theoretical sophistication. Drawing on poststructuralism,
ecofeminism, Marxism, and critical race theory, this wave interrogated the very
categories of “nature,” “culture,” and “environment.” Timothy Morton’s concept
of “ecological thought,” which argues for dissolving the nature-culture binary,
exemplifies this theoretical turn (5). Ecocriticism has also expanded beyond
literary texts to include film, visual culture, and urban studies.
However, the second wave posed
its own challenges. The influx of theory, though intellectually enriching,
occasionally leads to abstraction that obscures material environmental
concerns. Critics have noted that theory-heavy ecocriticism sometimes risks
losing touch with the biological sciences or the ecological realities it aims
to address. Furthermore, while the second wave diversified ecocriticism’s
corpus, it still struggled to meaningfully integrate scientific knowledge and
activism. Although important, the global turn sometimes centralises Western
theoretical frameworks in analysing non-Western texts. Nonetheless, the second
wave marked a crucial broadening of ecocriticism’s ethical and political
horizons in two ways.
IV
The third wave, emerging in the
late 2000s and developing through the 2010s, is often characterised by its
global orientation, interdisciplinary collaboration and emphasis on material
ecologies. Influenced by the Anthropocene discourse, new materialism, and
posthumanism, third-wave ecocriticism responds to the planetary scale of the
ecological crisis. Global climate change, species extinction, and resource
extraction demand frameworks that can account for transnational processes and
multispecies entanglements.
One of the most significant
theoretical developments of this wave was the influence of materialist and
posthumanist philosophy. Thinkers like Jane Bennett, Donna Haraway, and Stacy
Alaimo have proposed models of agency and embodiment that decentre human
exceptionalism. Bennett’s idea of “vibrant matter,” which attributes vitality
to nonhuman forces, encouraged eco-critics to consider the agency of natural
and technological assemblages (6). Haraway’s concept of “companion species”
emphasised multispecies kinship and the ethical implications of human-animal
relations (15). Alaimo’s “trans-corporeality” argued for understanding bodies
as materially connected to their environments, from toxins to oceans (7). These
concepts have reshaped ecocriticism’s methodological tools.
Globalisation has also played a
crucial role in this wave. The rise of transnational ecocriticism has brought
attention to climate migration, extractivism, oceanic studies, and global
supply chains. Dipesh Chakrabarty’s influential essays on climate change argue
that the Anthropocene collapses distinctions between human and geological time,
demanding new ways of thinking historically and ethically (212). Thus,
ecocriticism has moved beyond national literature to address planetary crises.
However, the third wave’s
emphasis on “planetarity” has been critiqued for its tendency toward
universalising rhetoric. Abstract discussions of the Anthropocene obscure
uneven vulnerabilities. Indigenous scholars, including Kyle Whyte, argue that
Indigenous communities have already experienced centuries of environmental
disruption, making their perspectives essential to ecological thought (154).
While transformative, the third wave’s theoretical advances sometimes risk
overshadowing grounded, community-based environmental struggles.
Moreover, although
interdisciplinarity has enriched the field, it has also introduced tensions:
How should literary studies engage with scientific data? To what extent can
ecocriticism claim expertise in ecological sciences? However, these questions
persist. Nonetheless, the third wave has profoundly expanded the scale,
vocabulary, and ethical complexity of ecocriticism.
V
The emerging fourth wave of
ecocriticism engages directly with digital technology, AI, datafied
environments, and emerging multispecies ontologies. While still in formation,
this wave reflects the increasing entanglement of ecological and technological
systems in human life. Digital mapping, satellite imaging, climate models, and
environmental sensor networks shape society’s understanding of ecological
change. Scholars such as Jennifer Gabrys explore how data infrastructures
mediate environmental perception and governance (12). Ecocriticism is beginning
to analyse not only representations of the environment but also the digital
tools through which ecological knowledge is produced in the digital age.
Another major development in this
wave is the rise of multispecies research. Scholars such as Anna Tsing, in The
Mushroom at the End of the World, illustrate how multispecies assemblages
challenge anthropocentric narratives (20).Fourth-wave ecocriticism draws on
ethnography, biology, and anthropology to rethink coexistence, resilience, and
future ecologies. Climate fiction (“cli-fi”), once considered a niche, has
become central to literary and cultural analysis. Works by authors such as
Amitav Ghosh, Octavia Butler, and Kim Stanley Robinson exemplify narratives
that combine ecological crisis with global politics, offering speculative
visions of environmental futures.
Digital humanities also intersect
with ecocriticism in this wave. Ecocritical scholars increasingly use
computational methods to analyse large corpora of texts, identifying patterns
of environmental representation across centuries and cultures. This
methodological shift raises new ethical questions, such as how algorithms shape
our understanding of ecological narratives. What environmental costs accompany
digital infrastructure? Fourth-wave ecocriticism interrogates these paradoxes.
However, this emerging wave also
faces limitations. Its embrace of technology risks overlooking the
environmental harms of digital culture, from electronic waste to
energy-intensive data centres to the carbon footprint of streaming.Its
speculative and multispecies frameworks, while innovative, can drift into
abstraction if they are not grounded in material ecological conditions. The
challenge for fourth-wave ecocriticism will be to integrate digital and
multispecies methodologies without sacrificing ecological specificity or
political urgency.
VI
Although the wave framework is
widely used, it is increasingly recognised as a simplification. The metaphor
suggests linear progression, but ecocriticism’s history is characterised by
overlaps, returns, and cross-currents. First-wave concerns about nature writing
remain relevant, particularly as climate-induced solastalgia renews interest in
place-based narratives. Second-wave commitments to justice continue shaping
every subsequent phase. Third- and fourth-wave theories often coexist within
the same scholarly work.
Moreover, the wave model presumes
a predominantly Western academic chronology that is Eurocentric. Ecocritical
traditions in South Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Indigenous communities do
not neatly map onto this schema. For example, Indigenous storytelling
traditions have long embodied ecological ethics that predate Western
ecocriticism by centuries. Similarly, colonial and postcolonial ecologies in
the Global South produce unique modes of environmental narratives that
challenge linear categorisations.
Another problem with the wave
metaphor is that it frames ecocriticism as a reactive discipline that always
responds to the next crisis or theoretical trend. While ecocriticism must
remain responsive to ecological realities, it should also cultivate sustained
modes of thought that resist the churn of academic fashions. The wave model
risks privileging novelty over continuity, when in fact ecocriticism’s strength
lies in its ability to synthesise multiple approaches.
VII
A more productive model for
understanding ecocriticism might be hydrological rather than oceanic—a river
delta or estuary where currents converge and diverge, rather than the ocean.
Such a model recognises ecocriticism as a dynamic system characterised by
interdependence and constant negotiation. It also emphasises relationality, mirroring
the ecological concepts that ecocriticism seeks to engage.
This re-conceptualisation
encourages collaboration across scientific, artistic, and community-based
knowledge systems. It foregrounds Indigenous ecological knowledge as
foundational rather than merely additive. It invites scholars to attend to both
material ecologies and their cultural mediations without privileging one over
another. Most importantly, it allows ecocriticism to remain responsive to
ecological crises while retaining its conceptual depth and ethical clarity.
In summary, ecocriticism has
travelled an extraordinary distance from its origins in nature writing to its
current engagements with global, digital, and multispecies futures. Each wave
offers valuable insights while introducing new challenges. The first wave
established ecocriticism as a field; the second expanded its political and
cultural lens; the third globalised and materialised its concerns; and the
fourth promises to reshape the field through technological and posthumanist
perspectives. However, the wave model, while convenient, fails to capture the
recursive, plural, and intersecting nature of ecocritical inquiry. A more fluid
conceptual framework allows ecocriticism to embrace its multiplicity and
ethical commitments during a moment of unprecedented planetary crisis.
Works
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