Proceedings of the International Conference on Dynamics of Environment, Sustainability, and Gender Disparities: A Holistic Dialogue for Inclusive Futures (ICDESGD 2025)

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Ontological Alienation and the Ecological Self: Re-appropriating the Human–Environment Relationship through Literary Mediation

Authors
Syed Fuzail Kaunsar1, A. Sulochana2, *
1Research Scholar, Department of English, B. S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India
2Assistant Professor, Department of English, B. S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India
*Corresponding author. Email: sulochana@crescent.education
Corresponding Author
A. Sulochana
Available Online 6 May 2026.
DOI
10.2991/978-2-38476-575-1_21How to use a DOI?
Keywords
alienation; Anthropocene; literature; sustainability; Margaret Atwood; philosophy; ecology
Abstract

This paper applies Rahel Jaeggi’s philosophical notion of alienation as a disrupted mode of appropriation to the analysis of the human-environment relationship. In the Anthropocene, this sense of alienation crosses social and cultural structures to shroud the broken relationship between people and the natural world. Environmental crises, resource exploitation, and the commodification of nature are argued to be expressions of the ensuing ontological alienation. This paper foregrounds Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake as a literary instance to illustrate how literature reveals the human experience of alienation in ecologically deteriorating environments. The text expresses a deep sense of loss, meaning, continuity, and rootedness that reflects Jaeggi’s analysis of alienation as the inability to genuinely engage with one’s world. By placing Jaeggi’s idea of overcoming alienation in the context of sustainability discourse, the study establishes an eco-critically aware definition of the concept of appropriation as a proactive ethical and ecological process of re-engagement with the environmental world, which facilitates the reconstitution of the ecological self as a part of an interdependent web of existence rather than as a passively uninvolved observer or exploiter.

Copyright
© 2026 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the International Conference on Dynamics of Environment, Sustainability, and Gender Disparities: A Holistic Dialogue for Inclusive Futures (ICDESGD 2025)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
6 May 2026
ISBN
978-2-38476-575-1
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/978-2-38476-575-1_21How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2026 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

risenwbib
TY  - CONF
AU  - Syed Fuzail Kaunsar
AU  - A. Sulochana
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/06
TI  - Ontological Alienation and the Ecological Self: Re-appropriating the Human–Environment Relationship through Literary Mediation
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Dynamics of Environment, Sustainability, and Gender Disparities: A Holistic Dialogue for Inclusive Futures (ICDESGD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 337
EP  - 351
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-575-1_21
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-575-1_21
ID  - Kaunsar2026
ER  -