Decolonial Hope

This book advances the cultivation of decolonial hope as a transformative framework for reimagining development through kinship, accountability, and ecological care. Positioning decolonial hope as both concept and praxis, it offers a critical intervention that challenges imperial legacies while advocating for just and equitable societies that honor human and non-human agencies alike. Central to this vision is the recognition that ethics, rights, and morals must be foundational to any sustainable future. The book foregrounds ecologies of care as integral to decolonial hope, bringing visibility to marginalized and unacknowledged ecological knowledge systems that sustain planetary well-being. By affirming plural epistemologies of the ecosystem in an era of polycrisis, it resists universal or utopian futures in favor of polyphonic narratives that emerge from diverse intellectual, epistemological, social, and pedagogical practices. These convergent approaches enable an unrestricted decolonial praxis oriented toward planetary justice and sustainability across cultures. Through carefully curated contributions, the editors present multiple perspectives and expressions of activism, solidarity, and justice within literary works, offering multifaceted conceptual frameworks that illuminate the significance of cultivating relationships with the natural world and provide constructive pathways toward sustainable, inclusive, and coexistence-oriented futures.

This book is intended for students, academics, independent scholars and researchers in postcolonial literature, decolonial studies, environmental humanities, ecocriticism, and related interdisciplinary fields. It will also appeal to those engaged with climate justice, ecological philosophy, and alternative epistemologies seeking to understand how literary and cultural practices can contribute to transformative social and environmental change.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Postcolonial Writing.