Aesthetic representation of contested environmental spaces in contemporary Kenyan fiction: An eco-aesthetic and postcolonial reading

                @article{CRSIJ26000383,
                  author = {Boaz Owino, James Odhiambo Ogone (PhD), Otieno, Odhiambo George (PhD)},
                  title = {Aesthetic representation of contested environmental spaces in contemporary Kenyan fiction: An eco-aesthetic and postcolonial reading},
                  journal = {Cosmo Research and Science International Journal},
                  year = {2026},
                  volume = {2},
                  number = {2},
                  pages = {292-311},
                  issn = {3108-1584},
                  url = {https://cosmorsij.com/published/CRSIJ26000383.pdf},
                  abstract = {Contemporary Kenyan fiction increasingly presents the environment as more than a backdrop to human life. Land, forests, oceans, rivers and other environmental spaces are often places where questions of identity, belonging, livelihood, development and power come together. Yet, less attention has been given to the ways in which the aesthetic representation of these spaces also exposes the unequal power relations through which they are contested. This article examines the representation of contested environmental spaces in Henry R. Ole Kulet’s Vanishing Herds (2011), Ng’ang’a Mbugua’s Angels of the Wild (2015), Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s the Dragonfly Sea (2019), and Ian McKenzie-Vincent’s Aziza and Bakari in the Climate of Change (2019). The analysis is grounded in eco-aesthetic and postcolonial theoretical perspectives and uses a qualitative interpretive approach based on close reading of the selected texts. Particular attention is given to imagery, symbolism, personification, narrative form, memory and indigenous ecological knowledge. The analysis shows that environmental spaces in these works are closely tied to memory, identity, livelihood and cultural belonging, but are also sites of dispossession, commodification, conservation struggles, infrastructural expansion, marine exploitation and pollution. The texts challenge the idea of nature as an object existing primarily for human use by giving the environment an active presence in the lives of characters and communities. The article contributes to Kenyan environmental literary scholarship by showing how aesthetic representations of nature can reveal the continuing effects of colonial histories and contemporary forms of economic and political power. It concludes that reading Kenyan fiction through eco-aesthetic and postcolonial lenses brings ecological concerns into conversation with cultural memory, social justice and struggles over the ownership, use and meaning of environmental spaces.},
                  keywords = {Eco-aesthetics, contested spaces, Kenyan fiction, postcolonial Eco criticism, environmental justice},
                  month = {September}
        }