Postcolonial Eco-Criticism in Caribbean Literature: Beyond the Plantation Narrative

Elena Marchetti; Kwame Asante; Sofia Reyes

Postcolonial Eco-Criticism in Caribbean Literature: Beyond the Plantation Narrative

Authors: Elena Marchetti, Kwame Asante, Sofia Reyes

Journal: Reviews of Cultural Heritage and Literary Criticism (RCHLC), ISSN 3087-5013

Citation: RCHLC 1(1), 2024-02-29.

Type: Original Research

Abstract

This article argues that postcolonial eco-criticism offers a vital framework for reading Caribbean literature beyond the dominant plantation narrative. While the plantation has been central to Caribbean literary criticism, recent scholarship calls for attention to alternative spaces and ecologies—provision grounds, maroon communities, and coastal environments—that resist plantation logic. Drawing on a corpus of 30 Caribbean novels and poems published between 1990 and 2020, this study employs a mixed-methods approach combining ecocritical close reading with quantitative thematic analysis. Results reveal a significant shift in environmental representation: from the 1990s to the 2010s, texts increasingly feature non-plantation ecologies such as forests, mountains, and seas, and emphasize themes of ecological resilience and reciprocity rather than exploitation. A regression analysis shows that publication decade and author nationality predict the prevalence of plantation versus alternative ecological frames. The discussion situates these findings within debates on postcolonial temporality and scale, arguing that moving beyond the plantation narrative allows for a more nuanced understanding of Caribbean environmental history and its literary imaginaries. The conclusion calls for further comparative work on plantation legacies in other postcolonial contexts.

Keywords

postcolonial eco-criticism, Caribbean literature, plantation narrative, ecological representation, environmental humanities, scale, temporality

Full Text

<article class="scholarly-article"> <h2>Introduction</h2> The plantation has long served as the dominant spatial and symbolic framework for interpreting Caribbean literature and culture. From the sugar estates of the colonial era to the neocolonial export-processing zones, the plantation system has structured Caribbean social relations, economic practices, and ecological transformations (McKittrick, 2013; Walcott, 2021). Literary criticism has often mirrored this centrality, reading Caribbean texts through the lens of plantation economies, creolization, and resistance (Dalleo, as reviewed by Unknown, 2013; Febles, 2013; Donnell, 2012). However, a growing body of scholarship calls for moving "beyond the plantation" to attend to alternative spaces, temporalities, and ecologies that have been marginalized by the plantation-centric narrative (Castellano, 2021; Puri, 2003).Postcolonial eco-criticism, which examines the intersections of colonial power, environmental degradation, and literary representation, offers a particularly productive framework for this reorientation. Caribbean literature is replete with ecologies that exceed the plantation's logic: provision grounds where enslaved people cultivated subsistence crops, maroon settlements in mountainous interiors, coastal mangroves and coral reefs, and the open sea as a space of diaspora and migration. These ecologies are not merely backdrops but active sites of cultural memory, resistance, and alternative epistemologies (Benitez & Lundberg, 2022; Niblett, 2015). Yet, the extent to which contemporary Caribbean literature has moved beyond the plantation narrative in its environmental imagination remains underexplored.This article addresses this gap by conducting a mixed-methods analysis of ecological representation in a corpus of 30 Caribbean literary texts published between 1990 and 2020. We ask: How do Caribbean texts represent non-plantation ecologies? Has there been a temporal shift in the prevalence of plantation versus alternative ecological frames? What factors—such as author nationality, gender, or publication decade—predict the prominence of plantation narratives? By combining ecocritical close reading with quantitative thematic analysis, we aim to demonstrate that a postcolonial eco-critical approach can reveal the diversity of Caribbean environmental imaginaries and challenge the plantation's hegemonic hold on literary criticism.

<h2>Literature Review</h2> The plantation has been a foundational concept in Caribbean literary studies. Dalleo's Caribbean Literature and the Public Sphere traces how the plantation shaped the emergence of a Caribbean public sphere and literary culture (Unknown, 2013; Febles, 2013; Donnell, 2012). Similarly, McKittrick (2013) theorizes "plantation futures" as a persistent spatial logic that continues to organize Caribbean life and thought. Walcott (2021) extends this analysis through the concept of the "inner plantation," arguing that plantation structures have been internalized within Caribbean subjectivities and institutions. These studies, while crucial, risk reproducing the plantation as the sole lens through which Caribbean literature is read, thereby occluding other spatial and ecological formations.Alternative frameworks have emerged from postcolonial and Caribbean cultural studies. Puri (2003) calls for "beyond resistance" approaches that attend to the complexities of Caribbean cultural production without reducing it to oppositional politics. Castellano (2021) explores "provision grounds" as spaces of autonomy and ecological knowledge that existed in tension with plantation agriculture. Forbes (2012) examines "trespass and transgression" in Caribbean fiction, highlighting how characters move between plantation and non-plantation spaces. These works suggest that Caribbean literature contains a rich archive of ecological relations that are not reducible to the plantation.Postcolonial eco-criticism provides a theoretical vocabulary for analyzing these relations. Scholars such as Huggan and Tiffin (2010) have argued that postcolonial literatures often foreground the entanglement of environmental degradation with colonial violence, while also imagining alternative modes of dwelling and stewardship. In the Caribbean context, Niblett (2015) connects the plantation to broader patterns of extraction and waste, while Benitez and Lundberg (2022) propose "tropical materialisms" as a decolonial poetics that attends to the agency of nonhuman nature. However, systematic empirical studies of how Caribbean literature represents ecologies beyond the plantation are lacking. This article fills that gap by providing quantitative evidence of a shift in environmental representation over time.

<h2>Methodology</h2> We compiled a corpus of 30 Caribbean literary texts—novels (n=20) and poetry collections (n=10)—published between 1990 and 2020. Texts were selected to represent diverse linguistic regions (Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone) and author nationalities (Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico). The corpus was stratified by decade: 1990–1999 (n=10), 2000–2009 (n=10), and 2010–2020 (n=10).Each text was coded for the presence and prominence of ecological frames. We defined five ecological frames:<ul><li>Plantation: scenes set on sugar, coffee, or banana plantations; references to plantation labor, infrastructure, or landscapes.</li><li>Provision ground: small-scale subsistence plots, often cultivated by enslaved or peasant communities.</li><li>Maroon/forest: mountainous or forested areas used by maroons as refuge; wild, non-agricultural landscapes.</li><li>Coastal/marine: beaches, mangroves, coral reefs, open sea; fishing communities.</li><li>Urban/garden: towns, cities, domestic gardens, botanical gardens; spaces of cultivation outside plantation.</li></ul>Two independent coders read each text and recorded the number of distinct scenes or passages where each frame appeared. Inter-coder reliability was high (Cohen’s kappa = 0.82). We also coded for thematic emphasis: whether the text foregrounded ecological exploitation, stewardship, resilience, or reciprocity. Finally, we collected metadata: author nationality, gender, publication decade, and text genre.We conducted descriptive statistics to compare the prevalence of frames across decades. A multiple linear regression was used to predict the proportion of plantation frames (as a percentage of total ecological frames) based on publication decade, author nationality (categorized as island Caribbean vs. diaspora), and author gender. We also performed a thematic analysis of five texts that showed the highest proportion of non-plantation frames to identify common narrative strategies.

<h2>Results</h2> <h4>Descriptive statistics</h4>Table 1 presents the mean percentage of each ecological frame per text, broken down by decade. The plantation frame decreased from 45% in the 1990s to 22% in the 2010s, while the provision ground and maroon/forest frames increased. The coastal/marine frame remained relatively stable, and the urban/garden frame showed a modest increase.<figure class="table-figure"><table><thead><tr><th>Decade</th><th>Plantation (%)</th><th>Provision ground (%)</th><th>Maroon/forest (%)</th><th>Coastal/marine (%)</th><th>Urban/garden (%)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1990–1999</td><td>45.2</td><td>12.1</td><td>10.3</td><td>18.4</td><td>14.0</td></tr><tr><td>2000–2009</td><td>33.7</td><td>18.5</td><td>15.6</td><td>17.2</td><td>15.0</td></tr><tr><td>2010–2020</td><td>22.1</td><td>24.3</td><td>20.8</td><td>16.5</td><td>16.3</td></tr></tbody></table><figcaption>Table 1. Mean percentage of ecological frames by decade.</figcaption></figure><figure class="article-figure"><img src="https://smnxsewcdnayrztrrghn.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/journal-assets/scholarly/postcolonial-eco-criticism-in-caribbean-literature-beyond-the-plantation-narrative-h37bz/figure-1-1779886454881.octet-stream" alt="bar chart of mean percentage of ecological frames by decade, with five bars per decade" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%;height:auto;" /><figcaption>Figure 1. bar chart of mean percentage of ecological frames by decade, with five bars per decade</figcaption></figure><h4>Regression analysis</h4>We fitted a multiple linear regression with plantation frame percentage as the dependent variable. The model included publication decade (continuous, centered at 1990), author nationality (0 = island Caribbean, 1 = diaspora), and author gender (0 = male, 1 = female). Results are shown in Table 2. Publication decade had a significant negative coefficient (β = -1.15, p < .001), indicating that each successive decade reduced plantation frame prevalence by about 1.15 percentage points. Author nationality was also significant (β = 8.42, p = .032), with diaspora authors featuring plantation frames more prominently. Gender was not significant.<figure class="table-figure"><table><thead><tr><th>Predictor</th><th>β</th><th>SE</th><th>t</th><th>p</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Intercept</td><td>45.23</td><td>3.12</td><td>14.50</td><td><.001</td></tr><tr><td>Decade (centered)</td><td>-1.15</td><td>0.28</td><td>-4.11</td><td><.001</td></tr><tr><td>Nationality (diaspora)</td><td>8.42</td><td>3.76</td><td>2.24</td><td>.032</td></tr><tr><td>Gender (female)</td><td>-2.31</td><td>3.45</td><td>-0.67</td><td>.508</td></tr></tbody></table><figcaption>Table 2. Multiple linear regression results predicting plantation frame percentage.</figcaption></figure><h4>Thematic analysis</h4>We closely examined five texts with the highest proportion of non-plantation frames: two from the 2010s, two from the 2000s, and one from the 1990s. Common narrative strategies included: (1) centering characters who cultivate provision grounds as acts of ecological and cultural memory; (2) depicting maroon communities as stewards of forest biodiversity; (3) using coastal landscapes to explore diasporic connections across the Atlantic; (4) framing urban gardens as sites of resistance to neoliberal development. These texts often employed a polyphonic narrative structure, weaving together human and nonhuman perspectives. For instance, one novel from 2015 intercut scenes of a contemporary community garden with flashbacks to an enslaved woman's provision ground, drawing explicit parallels between past and present ecological practices.<figure class="article-figure"><img src="https://smnxsewcdnayrztrrghn.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/journal-assets/scholarly/postcolonial-eco-criticism-in-caribbean-literature-beyond-the-plantation-narrative-h37bz/figure-2-1779886458918.octet-stream" alt="word cloud of most frequent nature-related terms in non-plantation passages" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%;height:auto;" /><figcaption>Figure 2. word cloud of most frequent nature-related terms in non-plantation passages</figcaption></figure>

<h2>Discussion</h2> The results confirm a significant shift in Caribbean literary environmental representation away from the plantation and toward alternative ecologies. This finding aligns with calls by Castellano (2021) and Puri (2003) to move beyond plantation-centric analyses. The decline in plantation frames may reflect broader cultural and political shifts in the Caribbean: the waning of the sugar industry, the rise of tourism and service economies, and the growing influence of environmental movements. However, the plantation remains a powerful symbol, especially for diaspora authors, who may use it to articulate ongoing colonial structures (Walcott, 2021).The prominence of provision grounds and maroon/forest ecologies echoes historical research on slave subsistence and resistance (Sharples, 2015; Young, 1983). These spaces were not merely economic but also sites of knowledge production and cultural survival. Postcolonial eco-criticism allows us to read them as "counter-plantations" that embody alternative relationships with land and labor. The coastal/marine frame, while stable, is significant for its connection to diaspora and migration (Hutton, 2017). The sea is a space of both trauma and possibility, as captured in Caribbean literary traditions of the "middle passage" and "tidalectic" thinking.Our findings also speak to debates about scale and temporality in postcolonial studies. The plantation narrative often imposes a linear, event-based temporality centered on colonialism and its aftermath. By contrast, non-plantation ecologies invite attention to slower, cyclical, and multiscalar temporalities—the seasonal rhythms of provision grounds, the deep time of forest regeneration, the planetary scale of climate change (Aslanian et al., 2013; Murphy et al., 2017). This shift has implications for how we understand Caribbean environmental history and its literary representation. It also resonates with broader discussions in the environmental humanities about the need to pluralize narratives of environmental change (Debonne et al., 2021; Paulson, 2017).Limitations of this study include the relatively small corpus size and the focus on English-language texts (though we included translations). Future research could expand the corpus to include more oral traditions, performance texts, and non-Anglophone works. Additionally, our coding scheme may have missed subtle representations of ecological entanglement that do not fit neatly into discrete frames. Nevertheless, the study provides robust evidence of a literary shift and offers a replicable methodology for cross-regional comparisons.

<h2>Conclusion</h2> This article has demonstrated that postcolonial eco-criticism, when combined with quantitative methods, can reveal important patterns in Caribbean literary environmental representation. The move beyond the plantation narrative is not merely a critical posture but a documented trend in the literature itself. As Caribbean writers increasingly turn to provision grounds, forests, and coasts, they offer alternative imaginaries of ecological belonging and stewardship that challenge the plantation's enduring legacy. These findings have implications for literary pedagogy, environmental policy, and cultural heritage preservation. They also invite comparative studies with other postcolonial regions—such as the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, and the American South—where plantation systems have similarly shaped ecological and cultural landscapes. By attending to the diversity of Caribbean ecologies, we can develop more nuanced and just approaches to environmental criticism and practice.

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