Ecological Injustice and Pastoral Dispossession in Aslam’s Thinner Than Skin

Abstract

This research aimed to highlight the ecology of injustice and pastoral dispossession in Thinner Than Skin (2012) by Uzma Aslam Khan through Environmental Justice Theory. This approach relied on the conceptualization developed by Bullard (2000) and Schlosberg (2007) with the key dimensions of EJT such as Distributive Justice and Structural Inequality, Recognition and Cultural Legitimacy, Participation and Democratic Inclusion, Accountability, and Multispecies Justice and Ecological Ethics. It examined the way, in which the novel exemplifies the issues of environmental destruction in Northern Pakistan in relation to both the Gujjar nomadic community and the disturbed mountain topography. The study also analyzed other factors like climate change, militancy and resultant militarization that worsened the displacement of the local ecologies and marginalization of pastoral livelihood. Moreover, when the socio-political and cultural processes related to the environmental degradation were discovered, the study revealed how the ecological inequality and the social inequality of the Global South were related to each other. Therefore, this research assessed the use of thematic analysis in Thinner Than Skin in order to create a concept of environmental justice, as the focus was on marginalized communities who were often not represented and challenged the already encultured paradigm of environmental problems. The outcomes of this exploration were to see the morality of literature in the research as a means to brought people on board with social responsibilities and made them aware of the environment, and to brought justice to the outside of the policy system.