Ecologıcal cıtızenshıp ın the poems by joy harjo

Abstract

Ecology emerged in the late nineteenth century in Europe and America although it is Einar Haugen who created the paradigm of “the ecology of language” in 1970. The science of ecology looks at nonhuman nature, studying the numerous, complex interactions among its abiotic components (air, water, soils, atoms, and molecules) and its biotic components (plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi). Human ecology adds the interactions between people and their environments, enormously increasing the complexities. The aesthetic, spiritual and recreational value for human beings now and in the future are encompassed in this approach to nature (Baxter, 1999). The ideology of ecologism involves a reconsideration of the way we think about moral and environmental matters and what Baxter refers to as human interconnectedness with the biosphere of this planet. One of the areas of ecology is eco-literacy which is defined as being the capacity to understand nature’s systems. Ecologism extends ecoliteracy towards ecological citizenship. The purpose of this study is to probe the ecological citizenship depicted in the poems by Joy Harjo who is strongly influenced by her Muskogee Creek heritage. Harjo holds that she feels strongly that she has a responsibility to all the sources that she is and has: to all past and future ancestors, to home country, to all places , to all voices, all women, all tribes, all people, all earth, and beyond that to all beginnings and endings (Harjo, 2014).