From Trans-Species Vulnerability to Social-Ecological Resilience: Aminatta Forna’s Happiness (2018)

Abstract

Aminatta Forna’s Happiness (2018) presents contemporary London both as a site of trans-species vulnerability and as a social-ecological system defined by its capacity for resilience, adaptability and transformability. Drawing on Judith Butler’s reconceptualization of vulnerability as resistance (2016), and on the ecofeminist extension of the ethics of care to non-human others, my analysis explores Forna’s cast of resilient characters who are transiting the postcolonial metropolis and are affected by various expressions of what Rob Nixon calls “slow violence” (2011). Additionally, by adopting the critical framework of resilience thinking and assuming its capacity to create decolonial narratives of survival and healing, I contend that it is possible to interrogate the boundaries that characterize the Anthropocene—between nature and culture, humans and non-humans, global and local, development and conservation—and accept Forna’s proposal to move beyond these dichotomies so as to embrace the importance of shared materialities, affects and ecosystems.