Hemispheric Ecological Citizenship

In times of instability, doubt, and crisis that affect individuals and entire social groups in a variety of forms and currently draw a bleak picture of an uncertain economic, political, and ecological future, cultural artifacts such as narrative literary works are not only engaged with by readers seeking pleasure, but also inspiration for transformation. Across the American hemisphere and thus across languages, cultures, and national borders, recent utopian fictional texts share a poetic program by presenting their readers with alternative societies that foster a more positive present and future through their critique of historical and/or existing injustices or inequalities.
This volume illuminates how these literary utopias generate a constructive and hopeful vision by conceptualizing a hemispheric ecological citizen. By proposing hemispheric ecological citizenship as an alternative form of the collective conception of humanity that reaches beyond the nation, the texts follow an intentional shift of perspective detaching oftentimes dislocated citizens from the concept of nation–traditionally conceived as a space where exclusion and discrimination of the other takes place–and locating them in a societal network of convivialism in which sustainability and a balanced relationship with nature become priority.