The water apocalypseVenice desert cities and utopian arcologies in Southwestern dystopian fiction

  1. María Isabel Pérez Ramos 1
  1. 1 KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden GIECO, Instituto Franklin, Spain
Revista:
Ecozon@ [Ecozona]: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment

ISSN: 2171-9594

Año de publicación: 2016

Título del ejemplar: Urban ecologies

Volumen: 7

Número: 2

Páginas: 44-64

Tipo: Artículo

DOI: 10.37536/ECOZONA.2016.7.2.909 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_opene_Buah editor

Otras publicaciones en: Ecozon@ [Ecozona]: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment

Resumen

Numerosas historias se han escrito, y se continúan escribiendo tanto en crítica como en literatura, acerca del futuro del Suroeste de Estados Unidos, y prácticamente siempre dicho futuro va mano a mano con las vicisitudes del agua. En un trabajo multidisciplinar que combina la ecocrítica, la historia medioambiental y teorías decoloniales,este artículo analiza las complejidades socio-tecnológicas que se encuentran tras la (mala) gestión del agua del Suroeste con especial atención a contextos urbanos, y sus consecuencias socio-medioambientales. Leslie Marmon Silko, en su obra The Almanac of the Dead(1991), presenta los planes para construir en Arizona una lujosa urbanización llena de fuentes y lagunas llamada ‘Venecia’. De forma similar la novela Alburquerque(1992), escrita por el célebre escritor chicano Rudolfo Anaya, presenta los esfuerzos de un candidato a la alcaldía por conseguir los derechos sobre el agua de la zona y sus planes para convertir la ciudad en una ‘Venecia del desierto’. Dichos planes provenientes de la ficción resultan particularmente creíbles cuando una lee las noticias sobre la urbanización Santolina, propuesta al oeste de la ciudad de Albuquerque. Por otra parte, la novela The Water Knife(2015), de Paolo Bacigalupi, presenta arcologías (edificios autosuficientes) como una posible opción para escapar de lo que prevé será una región infernal, una vez se agoten los acuíferos naturales y empeoren las inclemencias derivadas del cambio climático. La emigración, la xenofobia y la readaptación medioambiental se convertirán entonces en temas clave. Al analizar estas narrativas de ficción a través de una lente decolonial se cuestiona la actual gestión del agua en el Suroeste. Estas novelas distópicas resultan centrales a la hora de proponer futuros alternativos si se argumenta que la degradación medioambiental del Suroeste se debe en gran medida a la opresión cultural sufrida por los habitantes locales y nativos, al imponerles una cultural y una ética socio-medioambiental inadecuada.

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Fuente de los datos: Dialnet