Chapter 6
In: Imaginative Ecologies
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Abstract
The purpose of this work is to explore how literary genres such as fantasy and science fiction, without the time and place constraints of realistic types of writing, enable authors to imagine alternative worlds based on sustainability and a respectful relationship with the other. This chapter will analyse Laura Gallego’s Las hijas de Tara (Tara’s Daughters) following ecocritical and ecofeminist theories in order to establish a contrast with the unhealthy social systems that exist in most of our world. In first place, the portrayal of the planet Tara will be explored following Lovelock’s hypothesis of Gaia, and the positive and negative implications of presenting a planet as a living entity will be assessed. The analysis will then focus on the values, practices and attitudes that make of the societies portrayed in the novel an example (or not) of healthy co-habitation of individuals with their surroundings, and in so doing concepts such as the interconnectedness of life will be dealt with, together with the dichotomy natural/artificial. Therefore, this chapter aims at showing how fantasy and science fiction works may help readers imagine alternative, and more sustainable, futures.