Rina Garcia Chua | University of British Columbia (original) (raw)

Papers by Rina Garcia Chua

World literature today, Mar 1, 2024

The Global South, Aug 31, 2022

Empire and Environment argues that histories of imperialism, colonialism, militarism, and global ... more Empire and Environment argues that histories of imperialism, colonialism, militarism, and global capitalism are integral to understanding environmental violence in the transpacific region. The collection draws its rationale from the imbrication of imperialism and global environmental crisis, but its inspiration from the ecological work of activists, artists, and intellectuals across the transpacific region. Taking a postcolonial, ecocritical approach to confronting ecological ruin in an age of ecological crises and environmental catastrophes on a global scale, the collection demonstrates how Asian North American, Asian diasporic, and Indigenous Pacific Island cultural expressions critique a de-historicized sense of place, attachment, and belonging. In addition to its thirteen chapters from scholars who span the Pacific, each part of this volume begins with a poem by Craig Santos Perez. The volume also features a foreword by Macarena Gómez-Barris and an afterword by Priscilla Wald.

This project was designed to explore the ecoliterate tendencies of Dr. Abercio V. Rotor through h... more This project was designed to explore the ecoliterate tendencies of Dr. Abercio V. Rotor through his eco-poems in the collection Dont Cut the Trees, Dont! and related essays in his two other books, The Living with Nature Handbook and Living with Nature in Our Times. The aim of this ecocritique is to analyze the following: how his ecological literacy shapes his poetry, how his poetry fulfills the goal of ecological literacy, and why his poetry represents a significant contribution to the steps being undertaken to save the earth. Tropes of ecocriticism are used to support the ecoliterate tendencies that are introduced, namely: place as a mutualistic environment species interrelationship dismantling of disasters aesthetics of environmental justice. These tendencies have paved the way for a more critical/concrete perception of ecocriticism in the Philippine context and a stronger link between and among three fields literature, science, and education in the environmental debate. This thes...

Journal of Southeast Asian Ecocriticism, 2023

As of 2016, there are a recorded three million "documented" Filipinx migrants to countries all ov... more As of 2016, there are a recorded three million "documented" Filipinx migrants to countries all over the world. These growing numbers, increasing every year, have reflected the constantly changing landscape of the Filipinx identity-one that arguably has not yet been mapped with certainty due to years of oppression, colonisation, and, now, globalisation. These migrant Filipinx are often subjected to hardships and stereotypes that are perpetrated not only by their host countries, but also their fellow countrymen as well, which renders a major part of their experiences as a migrant "invisible." Thus, this paper challenges the preconceived notions of a migrant Filipinx via the "homes" they have remapped on new landscapes within and beyond the country. I argue that Filipinx migrants are creating new "routes and roots" that are both fostering a new Filipinx identity and steering back to the Filipinx identity as they navigate their ways onto new landscapes. Using Elizabeth DeLoughrey's critique of "tidalectics," which foregrounds "a dynamic method of geography that can elucidate island history and cultural production to provide frameworks that explore the complex and shifting entanglement between sea and land, diaspora and indigeneity, and routes and roots," I aim to analyse an ecopoem each from Merlinda Bobis and Charlie Samuya Veric that both complicate the geographies of a Filipinx migrant. My hope is that in doing so, the multiplicities of landscapes that the Filipinx migrant experiences are amalgamated in a new environmental culture

The Philippines, a country rich with natural resources, has taken steps to preserve its environme... more The Philippines, a country rich with natural resources, has taken steps to preserve its environmental megadiversity through the government’s existing environmental laws. However, reality seems to show a glaring disparity between what is being protected and what is being abused. The question is: what is fair to all? This paper’s primary purpose is to explore the aesthetics of local ecopoetry to discover whether the representation of environmental justice in literature can promote ecological fairness in the Third World. Using Hume’s concept of aesthetics to explore the inconsistency between the environmental laws and the message of the selected ecopoems, this study reveals that literature may be an important key to unlocking the solutions to the issue of environmental justice. Moreover, literature may serve as the unheard voice of the abused in the environment and may help pronounce the long-awaited verdict that the law cannot give to achieve environmental justice.

Close Reading the Anthropocene, 2021

Drawing on IA Richards's work on practical criticism and close reading, the article criti... more Drawing on IA Richards's work on practical criticism and close reading, the article critiques the idea of motivated form in ecopoetics, which suggests that there is a non-trivial relationship between poetic form and some aspect of physical ecosystems. Two ecopoems are closely analysed to indicate how questions of form might be used in ecopoetic analysis.

Green Letters, 2016

ABSTRACT The Philippines is replete with mythological tales about monsters which prey on human be... more ABSTRACT The Philippines is replete with mythological tales about monsters which prey on human beings. Yet, how many of these monsters stem from our unawareness of the environment and those that inhabit it with us? This essay explores the widening gap between the humans and non-humans in the Philippines and speculates on how literature may intervene in this issue. Using the selected ecopoetry of two Filipino writers in English as basis for analysis, this paper proposes an understanding of ‘species interrelationship’ as a concept in the ecological literacy of the third world. ‘Species interrelationship’ in ecopoetry will attempt to address the concerns of the representation of animals in Filipino culture and to discuss how the aforementioned concept is a useful educational tool in promoting sustainability in the third world.

Kritika Kultura, 2015

The Philippines, a country situated close to the equator and in the Pacific Ring of Fire, has bee... more The Philippines, a country situated close to the equator and in the Pacific Ring of Fire, has been constantly hit by natural disasters such as typhoons, earthquakes, landslides, and more. With a good number of local poetry dealing with these natural disasters as themes, is it possible for ecopoetry to provide readers with clear ideas on how to survive these catastrophic events? The major objective of this study is to explore the role of literature in promoting survival through the exploration of death and disaster in poetry. To do this, the different versions of disaster in the poetry of Merlie Alunan and Abercio V. Rotor are analyzed using the concept of “dismantling.” Dismantling involves surfacing the “scars of history” in poetry to create an ambience of disaster, which will link the dismantling of the (inside) feelings of the human being with the (outside) physical experience to clear a space for survival. Here, ecopoetry serves as a catalyst for sustainable thoughts which can b...

Binabalikan ng papel ang mga alaala ng may-akda ng kanyang kabataan at ilang pagbisita sa Marindu... more Binabalikan ng papel ang mga alaala ng may-akda ng kanyang kabataan at ilang pagbisita sa Marinduque upang pag-aralan ang naganap na sakunang pagtagas ng lason ng minahan sa Ilog Boac dala ng mga gawang pagmimina ng Marcopper Mining Corporation. Susuriin ng papel ang mga hangganan ng postkolonyal na ekokritisismo at eko-kosmopolitanismo upang makahanap ng angkop na balangkas teoretikal na maaaring magamit para sa isang ekokritika na lumalampas sa mga hangganang pambansa at estado, upang harapin ang mga usapin ng katarungang panlipunan at pangkalikasan nang lampas pa sa pagkakakilanlang nakabatay sa lugar tungo sa kritika ng mga hangganan. Nakapaloob ang papel sa balangkas ng pag-unawa na nagmumula sa personal na karanasang diasporiko ng may-akda, partikular sa ugnayan ng Canada at Pilipinas, na hindi naman talaga nakabatay sa kolonyal na kasaysayan ang ugnayan, kundi sa ideolohiya ng globalisasyon.

Látag: Essays on Philippine Literature, Culture, and the Environment, 2019

Toward a Migrant Ecocriticism is a proposal for a critical lens that predominantly uses postcolon... more Toward a Migrant Ecocriticism is a proposal for a critical lens that predominantly uses postcolonial ecocriticism and ecocosmopolitanism to address the new environmental cultures constructed out of the visible and invisible migrancies brought about by social, political, economical, and environmental causes. Recent catastrophes like the almost total wipeout of Tacloban City by Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and the devastating wildfires in British Columbia, Canada have resulted in humanitarian crises that have forced the movement of migrants from area to area; thus, this lens aims to shed light on these situations of precarity and instability via a chiasmic organization of disaster ecopoetry from Canada and the Philippines. It also attempts to interrogate colonial systems within these two countries, as well as the imperial debris that tie their ruins and ruinations together. A Migrant Ecocriticism seeks to ask questions such as: What can the migrant’s point of view allow us to see in today’s global human and non-human environmental crises? This framework proposes to answer such questions by comparing ecopoetry from both countries to analyse these marginalised points of view: a poet, a migrant, a survivor.

Katipunan, 2019

Green Letters - Studies in Ecocriticism, 2016

The Philippines is replete with mythological tales about monsters which prey on human beings. Yet... more The Philippines is replete with mythological tales about monsters which prey on human beings. Yet, how many of these monsters stem from our unawareness of the environment and those that inhabit it with us? This essay explores the widening gap between the humans and non-humans in the Philippines and speculates on how literature may intervene in this issue. Using the selected ecopoetry of two Filipino writers in English as basis for analysis, this paper proposes an understanding of ‘species interrelationship’ as a concept in the ecological literacy of the third world. ‘Species interrelationship’ in ecopoetry will attempt to address the concerns of the representation of animals in Filipino culture and to discuss how the aforementioned concept is a useful educational tool in promoting sustainability in the third world.

The Foreword to Bukambibig's (the Spoken Word Folio of the Philippines) issue on Disasters (Volum... more The Foreword to Bukambibig's (the Spoken Word Folio of the Philippines) issue on Disasters (Volume 1, Issue 04) discusses the relevance of the spoken word in remembering, memorializing, and processing the trauma left behind by natural disasters in the Philippines.

The Philippines, a country rich with natural resources, has taken steps to preserve its environme... more The Philippines, a country rich with natural resources, has taken steps to preserve its environmental megadiversity
through the government’s existing environmental laws. However, reality seems to show a glaring disparity between what is being
protected and what is being abused. The question is: what is fair to all? This paper’s primary purpose is to explore the aesthetics
of local ecopoetry to discover whether the representation of environmental justice in literature can promote ecological fairness
in the Third World. Using Hume’s concept of aesthetics to explore the inconsistency between the environmental laws and the
message of the selected ecopoems, this study reveals that literature may be an important key to unlocking the solutions to the
issue of environmental justice. Moreover, literature may serve as the unheard voice of the abused in the environment and may
help pronounce the long-awaited verdict that the law cannot give to achieve environmental justice.

World literature today, Mar 1, 2024

The Global South, Aug 31, 2022

Journal of Southeast Asian Ecocriticism, 2023

Close Reading the Anthropocene, 2021

Green Letters, 2016

Kritika Kultura, 2015

Látag: Essays on Philippine Literature, Culture, and the Environment, 2019

Katipunan, 2019

Green Letters - Studies in Ecocriticism, 2016

The Philippines, a country rich with natural resources, has taken steps to preserve its environme... more The Philippines, a country rich with natural resources, has taken steps to preserve its environmental megadiversity
through the government’s existing environmental laws. However, reality seems to show a glaring disparity between what is being
protected and what is being abused. The question is: what is fair to all? This paper’s primary purpose is to explore the aesthetics
of local ecopoetry to discover whether the representation of environmental justice in literature can promote ecological fairness
in the Third World. Using Hume’s concept of aesthetics to explore the inconsistency between the environmental laws and the
message of the selected ecopoems, this study reveals that literature may be an important key to unlocking the solutions to the
issue of environmental justice. Moreover, literature may serve as the unheard voice of the abused in the environment and may
help pronounce the long-awaited verdict that the law cannot give to achieve environmental justice.

When Typhoon Haiyan struck Visayas last November 8, 2013, many Filipinos launched various initiat... more When Typhoon Haiyan struck Visayas last November 8, 2013, many Filipinos launched various initiatives and campaigns such as donation drives, pledges, benefit concerts, and more. The most profuse and elaborate example is that of the " Tent City " volunteer station in the Villamor Airbase, where thousands of evacuated survivors onboard a C-130 plane from the affected areas were attended to with rounds of applause upon arrival, food, psychological debriefing, clothing, temporary shelters, and such. As the operations continued, it was evident that the activities inside the Tent City may be seen as a ritual, where liminalities and communitas are evident. This observation asks this question of how we understand these post-disaster relief operations: How is the act of volunteering becoming a performance? Using Victor Turner's work on " The Ritual Process " and the idea of " eco-minstrelsy " in ecocriticism, wherein the dominant Other performs their guilt or sympathy in these elaborate rituals of volunteering activities to connect with the event or to " come to terms " with it, our paper argues that these activities need to be recognized as mere performances which are in danger of becoming " ritualistic tradition. " In attempting to break this tradition, this discourse on volunteerism as ritual may lead to a sustainable solution to the yearly disaster-relief efforts by extending the activities beyond the aftermath of the disaster itself and making the community involved in the pre-disaster planning sessions, rather than only in the post-disaster relief operations. This way, we, as the community, are helping others by helping break the ritualistic tradition.

The Philippines, being a country rich with natural resources, has produced a strong body of ecopo... more The Philippines, being a country rich with natural resources, has produced a strong body of ecopoems which mirror and discuss the varying environmental situations of the country. However, the question still remains: Can these ecopoems be more than mere words on paper and become tools in coming up with sustainable ideas and solutions to prevent the environmental degradation of a Third World country? In my quest to answer this query, I have explored ecological literacy, which is the union of three different fields: literature, science, and education. Ecological literacy is unifying the writer’s literariness and ecological knowledge to produce a body of work which understands the local environment and educates readers of the human and nonhuman interrelationship within it to motivate ideas of creating sustainable communities here on earth. Speculating on the ecological literacy of Philippine ecopoetry may result to the following: it may pave the way for a more critical/concrete perception of ecocriticism in the Third World and a stronger link among the three aforementioned fields in the environmental debate; it may surface the capability of encouraging sustainable thoughts which in turn can be actions and steps toward saving the earth; it may also provide a link to utilize ecopoems for educational purposes to inspire and ingrain sustainable thoughts in readers. Thus, ecocriticism and environmental literature may contribute to the alleviation of the environmental crises by being the voices of the unheard communities and their environments and by creating a platform where literature can be utilized for scientific and educational purposes. More importantly, this project also paves the way for other ecocritical frameworks in the Third World, where it is imperative to heed the call of environmental destruction and degradation.

Often described as “resilient,” the Philippines has weathered storm after storm in its archipelag... more Often described as “resilient,” the Philippines has weathered storm after storm in its archipelago of roughly seven thousand islands. Every year, as lives are devastated by the almost quarterly onslaught of natural disasters, the solutions to sustaining the Philippine environment may not be in its people’s “resilience,” but in a paradigm shift that can be ignited through the ecological literacy of Philippine ecopoetry. Using selected ecopoems from the first anthology of Philippine ecopoetry entitled “Sustaining the Archipelago,” this paper will interrogate how these ecopoems are defining and redefining what an archipelago is in local literature through the concept of “living limestones.” Here, the archipelagic landscape of the Philippines will be mapped out through its poetry, and will be used in the attempt to answer the following questions: First, what is life in an archipelago? Second, what is the ecological literacy of the archipelago’s ecopoetry? Third, what can living in an archipelago teach the world about sustainability? In doing so, ecopoetry contributes to democratizing literature not only for human beings, but for all species here and everywhere else.

In Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s speech to announce his cabinet’s approval of the Kinder Morgan pi... more In Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s speech to announce his cabinet’s approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, he stressed the decision as one that was done in the “best interests” of Canada. When Trudeau mentioned “best interests” – what does it truly mean? Does it simply imply the finest socio-economic prospects for Canadians, or an underlying subtext that can be genealogically traced back to Canada’s racial and environmental history? Does “best interests” also include being transparently fair to the peoples and their environments, or does it precede threatening environmental justice for the sake of economic prosperity? Most importantly, what do major decisions like the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion say about Canada’s (specifically British Columbia’s) past, and what does it spell for the wellness of Canada’s future? On the year of Canada’s 150th year of independence, this paper will look into the past and analyze the BC Centennial Committee’s From Wilderness to Wonderland to determine how the “abundance” of British Columbia’s environment has been asserted and emphasized in national consciousness as a way to attain specific interests and, in doing so, has largely ignored the rights and well-beings of the First Nations communities and their environment. The play From Wilderness to Wonderland will be analyzed using Michelle Foucault’s concept of “docile bodies” to determine how Elizabeth Furniss’ “Frontier Cultural Complex” has been articulated not only in national consciousness but also in official historial material as well, perhaps establishing the myth of British Columbia’s abudance and how it is a province of infinite resources or “wilderness” that is meant for people to use for their own economic gain.

Environment and Pedagogy in Higher Education, 2018

The Third World nation of the Philippines, a country rich with both natural resources and disaste... more The Third World nation of the Philippines, a country rich with both natural resources and disasters, has produced a strong body of ecopoems which mirror and discuss the various environmental situations of the country, such as endangerment of species, forest depletion, environmental justice and more. However, the question still remains: Can these ecopoems be more than mere words on paper and become tools in coming up with sustainable ideas and solutions to prevent the environmental degradation of a developing country? This paper explores the concept of ecological literacy, which is the union of three different fields: literature, science, and education. Ecological literacy is unifying the writer’s literariness and ecological knowledge to produce a body of work which understands the local environment and educates readers of the human and nonhuman interrelationship within it to motivate ideas of creating sustainable communities here on earth. Ecological literacy in ecopoetry can pave the way for a more critical/concrete perception of ecocriticism in the Third World and a stronger link among the three aforementioned fields in the environmental debate. Furthermore, ecological literacy may equip young learners with the capability of conceptualizing the idea of sustainability, which in turn can be actions and steps toward saving the earth; it may also provide a more concrete link in using ecopoems to inspire and ingrain sustainability in readers. Thus, ecocriticism and environmental literature have contributed to the alleviation of the environmental crises by being the voices of the unheard communities and their environments, and by creating a platform where literature can be utilised for scientific and educational purposes. More importantly, this project also paves the way for other ecocritical frameworks in the Third World, where it is imperative to heed the call of environmental destruction and degradation.

(Full version of the Introduction to the anthology of Philippine Ecopoetry, "Sustaining the Archi... more (Full version of the Introduction to the anthology of Philippine Ecopoetry, "Sustaining the Archipelago")

Often described as "resilient," the Philippines has weathered storm after storm in its archipelago of roughly seven thousand islands. Every year, as lives are devastated by the almost quarterly onslaught of natural disasters, the solutions to sustaining the Philippine environment may not be in its peopleÕs Òresilience,Ó but in a paradigm shift that can be ignited through the ecological literacy of Philippine ecopoetry. Using selected ecopoems from the first anthology of Philippine ecopoetry entitled ÒSustaining the Archipelago,Ó this paper will interrogate how these ecopoems are defining and redefining what an archipelago is in local literature through the concept of Òliving limestones.Ó Here, the archipelagic landscape of the Philippines will be mapped out through its poetry, and will be used in the attempt to answer the following questions: First, what is life in an archipelago? Second, what is the ecological literacy of the archipelagoÕs ecopoetry? Third, what can living in an archipelago teach the world about sustainability? In doing so, ecopoetry contributes to democratizing literature not only for human beings, but for all species here and everywhere else.

Asia-Pacific Social Science Review, 2018

A book review of Adam Simpson's "Energy, governance and security in Thailand and Myanmar (Burma):... more A book review of Adam Simpson's "Energy, governance and security in Thailand and Myanmar (Burma): A critical approach to environmental politics in the South."

Close Reading the Anthropocene, 2021

Drawing on IA Richards's work on practical criticism and close reading, the article critiques the... more Drawing on IA Richards's work on practical criticism and close reading, the article critiques the idea of motivated form in ecopoetics, which suggests that there is a non-trivial relationship between poetic form and some aspect of physical ecosystems. Two ecopoems are closely analysed to indicate how questions of form might be used in ecopoetic analysis.