Decolonized and resistant ecologies: An examination of John Still’s The Jungle Tide

This article focuses on John Still’s ([1930] 1955) novel, The Jungle Tide that describes the impact of the European colonial enterprise on the ecologies of South Asia, specifically on their post-independence predicaments. It examines how even a loyal imperialist like Still was deeply disturbed by the ways in which colonialism initiated the ruinous intersection of racial-capitalism and plantation-monoculture, resulting in the large-scale movement of people for labour, and extensive deforestation programmes that led to the destruction of rainforests, species depletion, and biodiversity loss. The novel provides insights into the ways in which the Sri Lankan forests were destroyed to make way for plantation monoculture while also challenging the prevailing colonial assumptions that legitimized this conversion. This article explores Still’s interrogation of the ideologies of colonial, postcolonial, and neocolonial governance, structural racism, global capitalism, and environmental degradation and how these interconnected forces become imbricated in Sri Lankan and South Asian histories.