Volume VI Special Issue VII October 2026

Name of Author : Aishwarya Singh

Title of the paper : Fluid Borders and Fractured Lives: Postcolonial Ecocriticism and Subaltern Displacement in Amitav Ghoshs The Hungry Tide

Abstract: Amitav Ghoshs The Hungry Tide renders the Sundarbans as a fluid ecological space where unstable landscapes and fractured human lives expose the political limits of conservation. This paper examines how shifting boundaries between land and water intersect with histories of subaltern displacement, environmental injustice, and unequal ecological vulnerability. Drawing on postcolonial ecocriticism, environmental justice, and Rob Nixons concept of slow violence, the study uses close textual analysis to trace the tension between Piya Roys scientific expertise and Fokirs situated ecological knowledge, while reading Morichjhapi as a contested site of conservation, state power, and dispossession. The cyclone further reveals the limits of human mastery and the uneven consequences of ecological crisis. The study argues that Ghosh reimagines conservation as a relational ethical practice in which ecological protection remains inseparable from social justice, local knowledge, historical memory, and more than human interdependence.

Keywords : The Hungry Tide; Amitav Ghosh; Postcolonial Ecocriticism; Subaltern Displacement; Sundarbans

DOI :

Page Number : 19-29