Arguing for Environmental Education: Sustainability and Decoloniality in Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather

Abstract

Environmental education aims to tackle the diminishing engagement between human beings and the natural environment, identify possible remedies, and facilitate positive transformations. Within the context of the early twenty-first century, there has been a growing acknowledgment, both at a worldwide level and particularly among nations of the Global South, regarding the importance of environmental education in understanding, mitigating, and resolving diverse environmental challenges that exist in different communities. Environmental literature plays a significant role in facilitating environmental education. Stories are not only enjoyable for readers but, in their unique ways, build on the emotional connections necessary for enabling understanding. The present article examines Bessie Head’s first novel, When Rain Clouds Gather (Edinburgh: Pearson, 1968) as a compelling work of environmentalism. In delineating the detrimental outcomes resulting from Western concepts of development and colonial intervention in African ecosystems, the novel emphasises the need to question Western epistemic hegemony. It inculcates critical thinking, leading to an understanding of the deeper politics of environmental degeneration in Africa. This article focuses on how the novel exhibits a forward-thinking quality by highlighting the necessity to decolonise and demonstrating methods and narratives around growth and transformation. These are too often assumed to be universal. Finally, the article establishes that literary works of this nature accentuate engagement with indigenous stories, perceptions, and knowledge forms to achieve sustainability in contemporary times.