Ecological Impacts of Imperialism in Kimani’s Dance of the Jakaranda: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

The study examined the ecological impacts of colonization in Peter Kimani's Dance of the Jakaranda. The scope of the study included the analysis of colonial strategies used by British colonizers in East Africa, the plunder of resources, and the resulting environmental consequences as depicted in the novel. Textual analysis was employed as a method of study. The novel was selected using a purposive sampling method for its strong environmental and ecological concerns. The data were collected through close reading of the novel. Excerpts were gathered and categorized according to postcolonial thematic categories with direct connections to the environment and ecology, and the analysis was conducted using tenets of ecological imperialism. The result of the analysis shows that the novel depicts colonial plunder of resources as an archetypal issue, illustrating that the colonizers’ subjugation of the indigenous peoples of East Africa was exclusively to satisfy materialistic desires. The plunder involves both human and nonhuman entities. This is followed by the catastrophic environmental repercussions of colonial rulers' violent colonial strategies, or ecological imperialism, which include the use of disease, deforestation, conservation, and ecological degradation caused by military aggression and fire. The text depicts a complete environmental transformation as a result of the sequential exertion of colonial instruments, colonial exploitation, and resource transfer. Colonialism causes the nation's birth in East Africa, evolves into neocolonialism eventually, and continues to impact this new nation and its ecosystem, either directly or indirectly.