Socio-Ecological Subjectivity in Paschally Mayega’s The People’s Schoolmaster

Abstract

Abstract Mismanagement of the environment destroys biotic resources including trees, plants, birds, mammals and aquatic species; this forces people to endure contending with material hazards and places human lives at risk. Fiction provides a lens to interrogate the different ways in which environments are imagined, negotiated and used in socio-geographic and political arenas. Mayega’s novella The People’s Schoolmaster problematizes the various factors that victimise humankind ecologically. Relying on Rob Nixon’s concept of ‘slow violence’, I analyse Mayega’s representation of local reactions to global environmental crises; he portrays local publics reacting to political laxity, dishonesty, stinginess and misappropriation of public funds as the major causes of savage environmental destruction.