Title: Imagination of Ecocommunity: Literary Cartography in The Conservationist

Abstract: Nadine Gordimer engages in literary cartography to explore the relation between human and ecological holism in The Conservationist, mapping South African farm space, transportation network, and ecocommunity to delve into the roots of ecological crisis and potential solutions. By mapping the farm space, the novel reveals the unequal resource allocation under colonialism and apartheid, exposes the misconceptions and wrongdoings of the privileged white class that have destroyed local ecocommunity, and celebrates the agency and subjectivity of Black Africans as “conservationists,” thus challenging and subverting the distortion and oppression perpetuated by the Western environmentalism and colonial discourse. The mapping of the transportation network connects local ecocommunity to the global context, revealing the evils of ecological injustice and anthropocentrism, while advocating for global cooperation to foster an organic ecocommunity. The mapping of the ecological community underscores the agency of non-human nature, emphasizing the collaborative agency of human and non-human in sustaining the ecocommunity. This highlights a communal imagination of harmonious coexistence between human and nature.

Keywords:: South Africa, Nadine Gordimer, ecological crisis, literary cartography, ecocommunity

Author: Yongling Zhu, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Foreign Studies, Nankai University, Tianjin, China; Lecturer, School of Foreign Languages, Huaibei Normal University, Huaibei, Anhui, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2024.03.005