Eco-literary Futures
摘要
This concluding chapter provides a final reflection on how ecofiction novels authored by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian writers represent a shift in the way that belonging and the nonhuman are perceived in broader environmental discourse of the twenty-first century. Here, I bring together my thoughts on how contemporary Australian authors are engaging in more nuanced ways with the nonhuman than previously and how this links with developing notions of belonging and unsettlement in the context of climate crisis and decolonial movements. I also consider whether this shift in nonhuman representation and the increased emphasis on unsettlement in the Australian postcolonial eco-novel reflects the possibilities of a more relational, less instrumentalist ecological future for postcolonial nations like Australia, or whether such possibilities are made miniscule in the face of still-widespread settler-colonial policy and cultural domination in Australia and elsewhere.