Literature and the Ecological Critique of Hierarchy

Published in Radical Literary Inquiry , Author : Carter, Mason ORCID iD : 0009-0004-6420-4114 Abstract Literary representations of ecological crisis expose the intimate relationships between social hierarchy and environmental domination by demonstrating that the subordination of human populations and the instrumentalisation of living systems arise from shared logics of command, extraction, and proprietary control. Drawing upon Murray Bookchin’s social ecology and Peter Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid, this essay examines the ways in which contemporary speculative and environmental fiction elaborates the parallel operations of hierarchical social organisation and ecological degradation. Through sustained analysis of works by Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler, M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, and related solarpunk narratives, the essay demonstrates that ecological crisis appears as the material consequence of hierarchical social forms, and that alternative modes of consociation grounded i…