Ecodocumentaries

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiii

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2. Introduction: The Ethics of Relationships in Social Documentaries

   • Rayson K. Alex, S. Susan Deborah

   Pages 1-7

3. Land, Food, Ethics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9

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   2. In God’s Land: Cinematic Affect, Animation, and the Perceptual Dilemmas of Slow Violence

      • Salma Monani

      Pages 11-31

   3. Transnational Perspectives on Land Ethics: Elemental and Not My Land

      • Pietari Kääpä

      Pages 33-50

   4. Communal Indian Farming and Food Ecology: A Reading of Timbaktu

      • Pat Brereton

      Pages 51-71

4. Development, Waste, Ethics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73

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   2. Ecological Imperialism in the Age of the Posthuman: David Fedele’s E-Wasteland

      • Başak Ağın Dönmez

      Pages 75-94

   3. Wasted Humans and Garbage Animals: Deadly Transcorporeality and Documentary Activism

      • Chia-ju Chang

      Pages 95-114

   4. Surviving Progress, Modernity and Making Sense of the Crisis in Nature

      • Divya Anand

      Pages 115-131

5. Tree, River, Ethics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 133-133

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   2. What is “A” Fig?

      • Nirmal Selvamony

      Pages 135-153

   3. Elemental as Mythic and Existential Parable

      • John A. Duvall

      Pages 155-170

   4. The Possibilities of a River and a Ritual Dance: An Ecoethnographic Analysis of Kuttan Aarangottu Vayali’s Bhagavathy aattu

      • R Sreejith Varma, Swarnalatha Rangarajan

      Pages 171-188

   5. Eco-exoticism in Thorny Land: Invasion of Cheemakaruvel

      • Rayson K. Alex, K. Samuel Moses Srinivas, S. Susan Deborah

      Pages 189-202

6. Back Matter

   Pages 203-213

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This book features ten critical essays on ecodocumentaries written by eminent scholars from India, USA, Ireland, Finland and Turkey in the area of ecocinema studies. Situating social documentaries with explicit ecological form and content, the volume takes relational positions on political, cultural and conservational aspects of natures and cultures in various cultural contexts. Documentaries themed around issues such as electronic waste, animal rights, land ethics, pollution of river, land grabbing, development and exotic plants are some of the topics ecocritiqued in this volume.

• Ecocriticism
• Ecomedia
• Ecocinema
• Documentary
• Conservation
• Electronic waste
• Fracking
• Land grabbing
• Land ethics
• Animal rights

• Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences, Pilani, Goa, India

  Rayson K. Alex

• M. E. S. College of Arts & Commerce, Goa, India

  S. Susan Deborah

Rayson K. Alex, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences Pilani, K.K. Birla Goa Campus, Goa, West India. He is one of the editors of Essays in Ecocriticism (2007) and Culture and Media: Ecocritical Explorations (2014). Along with S. Susan Deborah, K. Samuel Moses and Sachindev P.S., he founded ‘The Ecomedia Team’ in 2005 which gradually grew into tiNai Ecofilm Festival (www.teff.in), an international ecofilm festival dedicated to ecodocumentaries. His academic interests are in the areas of indigenous studies, ecoindigeneity, ecocinema studies and ecocriticism.


S. Susan Deborah, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, M. E. S. College of Arts & Commerce, Goa, West India. She is one of the editors of Culture and Media: Ecocritical Explorations (2014), the first volume in the area of ecocinema in India. She is the recipient (along withRayson K. Alex) of ASLE-USA Media Subvention Grant, for creating an interactive video space for ecocinema scholarship. Her interests lie in food studies, ecomedia and ecocriticism.

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