“Slow Violence” is a concept introduced by Nixon that is entirely new to me, as is the anthropocene. Because of this, I am having a hard time looking at the issue of climate and the anthropocene through the lens ofthe perceived “slow violence.” I am used to looking at the climate issue as secondary part of a larger issue of what many of our readings refer to as “global capitalism,” and therefore have focused on it’s direct effect. While it is very important to look at the root of a problem, I was intrigued by the concepts introuced by Nixon to push writers to produce elements of slow violence into their works of fiction in order to make it conceivable in order to then change the framework of how society sees the issu of climate.

I am still pretty confused by the connections of slow violence, climate and literature so that is what I plan to use this blog post for. For my own practice and for the purpose of correction/clarification. Slow violence is the gradudal development of climate change that with time grows more and more violence. Because of the gradual and, hence, slow development, this type of violence becomes normalized and almost unseen, unrecognized and dismissed. So not only is sort of violence happeing slowly, there is little to nothing actively being done since it it not only develops more violent, but more normal and routine as well. So, what Nixon’s piece seeks to do is draw connections between fiction novels and modern culture and coonsciousness in order to connect how writers today can bring an almost unconscious connection between their works of fictional literature and climate to their readers.

-C

Slow violence is a term used to refer to an act that is happening slowly and does a bare impact until the long term that threatens the world and every single species that lives on earth. Yet most people aren’t really worried about the future and what awaits them because the future is unpredictable. While there are some minor examples such as natural disasters that be happening more often people don’t catch and think it’s something normal while they dont realize that there is a drastically amount of changes in the ecosystem that are abnormal to seeing, but the reason is because of the way human threat their own planet and the things they do without considering whether this is good or bad for the environment. Anthropocene is the word to describe the current era where the earth changes due to the decisions people are making on a daily basis not realizing the harm they are doing and risking not only them, but the upcoming future generations that may have to carry the consequences of people. But we are also living in an age that technology has distracted us with entertainment and affects our span of time and not be able to think and see their surroundings about the things that are happening. Because the world depends on the changes of the people and if they decide to change they would change the outcome compared to the other outcome that would end up being if people don’t act quick before it gets too complicated to solve an issue that could have been reversed when it wasnt that powerful. Humans may be the one to blame for the decisions they decide to approach while improving their society and systems. And it depends on them whether they want to do something or face their own consequences. News is a source that people rely on a daily basis that also should put out into the spotlight the threats and warnings of slow violence with evidence so people who didn’t know now know about it, think about it and find ways to fix something and have people supporting them and helping them to reverse issues that are reversible and realize that all this time they been normalizing something threatening that is unseen and does not show any threat before it gets out of hands.

Nixon talks about slow violence and specially a part that gathered my attention the most was finding ways to send out the message he wants to send out through having writers to generate fabricated stories that have something to do with slow violence with imagery ways that will gather the eyes from the public and political figures that will later on question about this potential issue that could either be terminated if they solve it before it’s too late or the biosphere is threatened by the slow violence that is complicated to combat with. Fiction that could be used to relate to the current age with an artificial outcome of what the outcome could be if people don’t respond to it quickly. And slow violence is a process that isn’t visible at the beginning until later in the future. From having examples and back up that support his own belief about how humanity is self destroying themselves with bad decision makers especially powerful leaders that could influence a society to follow and do what they say. Poor countries are the ones who experience the act of slow violence because they receive waste from rich countries and have to face the consequence, Nixon wants them to speak out because know about this issue since they are the one experiencing and their voices need to be heard by the media and the ones that don’t have to go through those challenges and struggles. So they have an idea of what is happening based on how they emotionally feel about those types of situations and how they can come together and fix it so no one has to suffer. This has happened since the industrial revolution and before could be colonialists who change the landscape of a country for the sake of profits and wealth that ain’t going to save them when catastrophe happens to a point that there is no escape from it. Just like Lemanger says that people need to get used to death because at some point everyone will go through it. Lemanger uses this idea of cli-fi that could be an option to approach everyone with fabricated novels based on the current moment everyone is living a life in anthropocene and with these type of novels hopefully people realize the potential destination they could end up if they keep letting abnormal things to happen before it gets into a bigger complexity that would be challenging to combat with and live with it. Novels that have to do with futuristic, love and life without humans are examples that can gather people’s attention and realize the things they are doing to the earth and hopefully find a way to stop this slow violence thing before it’s too late. Fictional stories that have to do with climate change and from how it started and how it ended would be a way to approach people and spread awareness of the type of world they are living in and how to reverse issues that the time is still there. Not to bring frightening into their lives, but to change something in their psyche about their lifestyle and how it harms the environment and put it at risk to potentially never see life on earth.

Additionally climate change is an example that we can use as slow violence because it doesn’t has a big impact yet and people are aware of this potential catastrophe, but people seem to take it for granted and don’t take it seriously while it barely does something, but once it gets to a point that the situation is irreversible it may do a total chaos that would be complex to repair what was destroy. Specially politics they don’t seem to see climate change as a threat yet because there is no proof of it doing a drastically amount of impact to the earth, and they are the ones who should take this issue and expand it and expose it to a big audience since they have the authority to put out laws and other type of things to diminish the potential climate change. Examples like sea water rising and ice sheets being the result of the water rise, hotter temperature, natural disasters appearing more often. Evidence that would be considered slow violence currently happening and yet not everyone is on the same page to fix this situation before it gets out of hand.

Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor addresses environmental damage that happens very slowly and goes unnoticed (the idea of slow violence). This highlights the challenges in dealing with environmental issues and how they need more attention and representation to become just as pressing of an issue as fast-paced and dramatic violence.

Nixon presents a compelling argument about the nature of environmental harm. He introduces the concept of slow violence, which is “violence that occurs out gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all.” (2356) This type of violence “discounts long-term casualties … and cultures possessing environmental practices and concerns of their own.” (2356) Slow violence needs the same urgent attention specifically media-driven attention that immediate violence receives so more people can become aware and do something about it. He also points out that “slow violence” affects poor communities who do not have the means to deal with it or escape from it like the richer communities do. For example, Lawerence Summers argues the benefits for the rich that come from “exporting rich nations garbage, toxic waste, and heavily polluting industries to Africa,” (2355)  and how this would ease the pressure from the rich environmentalists who claim that the garbage and waste pose as a health threat to them. What about Africa and the threat these toxic wastes and garbage pose for them? Just because it is not immediate violence, does not mean that it is not harmful to them.

By emphasizing the slow violence of environmentalism, Nixon critiques narratives that focus on more immediate forms of violence. For example, going back to Summers’ point of view, Nixon argues that by advocating invading Africa with weapons, which harms Africans in a more immediate way rather than with trash and toxicity, which harms Africans in a slow, out-of-sight way, people would’ve reacted differently. Nixon’s argument emphasizes the need for a shift in perspective to recognize and address long-term damage this is doing to the environment and people’s health.

Both Nixon and LeMenager address the challenges of representing environmental issues, though from different angles. Nixon’s concept of slow violence and LeMenager’s exploration of genre share a common theme with how environmental issues are communicated and understood. Nixon’s focus on the invisibility of slow violence complements LeMenager’s discussion of how different genres can represent climate change.

His argument about slow violence can be seen as a response to the limitations of traditional narrative forms, which often prioritize more immediate, dramatic events. This ties into LeMenager’s exploration of genre and the struggle to find an appropriate genre for climate change to capture the long-term threats of environmental issues. The challenge of genre is not just about fitting climate change into existing forms of genre but also about creating new narratives that can effectively communicate its slow violence.

Nixon assumes that visibility and immediacy are necessary for recognizing and addressing slow violence and he completely values the forms of representation that are direct and dramatic, just as they are with fast-paced violence, which can be done most effectively by writers because “writing can challenge perceptual habits that downplay the damage slow violence inflicts and bring into imaginative focus apprehensions that elude sensory corroboration.” (2368)  However, this can be controversial. Not everyone enjoys reading. As someone who used to find reading non-fictional articles/books boring, this may not be the way to spread awareness of the slow violence to all people, especially the new generation. Trying to connect with them can be an effective way to spread awareness since they are going to the next adults. If it is not too late for Earth, they can make a difference along with the current adults.

We most often think that climate change will only affect our future, but it’s happening now. Unlike acute disasters or events that unfold rapidly, climate change operates on a slow, invisible timeline, making it difficult to understand its impact. As Rob Nixon points out in “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor,” this “slow violence” of environmental degradation is brutal to visualize and hard to push people into action. Literature, particularly novels, can bridge this gap, offering readers ways to grasp the complexity of climate change through imagination, empathy, and narrative form. By analyzing the works of Nixon and Ghosh, I will explore how novels can serve as crucial tools in helping us think more deeply and effectively about the challenges of climate change.
Nixon’s “slow violence” concept is important to understanding why climate change is so difficult to represent effectively, unlike forms of violence that are spectacular and immediate, such as wars or natural disasters. This violence includes phenomena like rising sea levels, glacial retreats, and species extinction, all of which are difficult to capture in real time. As Nixon argues, “The attosecond pace of our age, with its restless technologies of infinite promise and infinite disappointment, prompts us to keep flicking and clicking distractedly in an insatiable and often insensate quest for quicker sensation.” (2362) In other words, technology has always been said to solve the world’s problems by bringing our world into a new age, when in reality, it’s more a distraction from the issue at hand, treating environmental action as critical yet not urgent because it can’t be seen. The difficulty in representing this slow violence is that its effects are not immediate and personal for many people, particularly those in wealthier nations, making it harder to provoke a sense of urgency or responsibility. This is where novels step in, offering a middleman that can represent time, place, and human experience in nuanced ways that are often inaccessible to visual media or scientific reports. Nixon points out that slow violence usually takes the form of gradual environmental degradation, which can be hard to represent because it doesn’t fit into conventional crisis and resolution. Novels, however, can depict the interconnected nature of ecosystems and human societies, showing how small environmental changes, deforestation, water pollution, and species loss can accumulate over time and lead to more considerable societal consequences.
Novels can explore multiple perspectives, timelines, and emotional states; novels are particularly well-suited to addressing the challenges of representing slow violence. Literature will help us imagine new solutions, make people care, and help us reimage our relationship with the natural world. In “The Great Derangement,” Amitav Ghosh calls out the general absence of climate change in modern fiction despite the effect it will have on human life. He argues that the novel can make readers feel the interconnectedness of individual actions and global environmental crises, even if those connections are not immediately visible. Through complex characters and carefully constructed settings, novels can show how climate change impacts communities differently, emphasizing environmental degradation’s local and global dimensions. This emphasis on the diverse impacts of climate change can create a sense of empathy and understanding, allowing the reader to think more deeply about climate change. Ghosh’s critique calls on a novel’s potential to make visible the otherwise unseen forces of climate change, giving readers a way to engage with the crisis emotionally and intellectually. Specifically, in fiction, authors can depict the long-term consequences of environmental neglect in ways that make these abstract dangers feel immediate and personal. Novels can bridge the gap between the slow unfolding of climate change and the immediate emotional response it requires by showing characters dealing with everyday struggles and more significant ecological threats.
To summarize, both Nixon and Ghosh wrestle with the difficulty of visualizing the “slow violence” of climate change in ways that make it seem possible to act effectively. Novels have a special way of using their position in literature by weaving ecological themes into plotlines; they can illustrate the understanding of the invisible killer, climate change, and its impact on human life.

After reading the works of Nixon, Lemenager, and Ghosh, a clear dissonance between our culture’s focus on consumption, as well as individualism, causes the inevitable consumption of our planet. Ghosh writes about historical instances in which climate change has moved on a scale beyond Nixon’s “slow violence”. Nixon defines “slow violence” as “forms of environmental violence that are easily ignored because they occur over long periods of time and are spatially dispersed,” ( Nixon 1). Nixon speaks to how activist writers can bring awareness to the issues of slow violence. He closes his argument with a comment about who bears witness. Nixon says, “ Contests over what counts as violence are intimately entangled with conflicts over who bears the social authority of witness, which entails more than seeing or not seeing,”(Nixon, 16). This clear boundary between bearing witness to slow violence or even violence for that matter and finding it imperative to call attention to injustice or harm being done to other communities or community members is one of the main reasons authors are calling for a collectivist approach. 

In” Climate Change and the Struggle for Genre”, by Stephanie LeMenager, a discussion of every day and “regularity” is brought up. She begins her piece by sharing the climate change news and then discussing the news that are “ anecdotes of catastrophe digestible with coffee,”(LeMenager, 2). While this regular news feed shows us many forms of violence and highlights the problems in the world, it can make us forget that our planet is changing and that our “‘everyday’ relies on human habit and its complement of forgetting,” (Lemenager, 2). Lemenager takes Nixon’s concept of slow violence and argues a similar point of view to Ghosh when she speaks on “learning to die” as a society and civilization. Ghosh and Lemenager both argue to abandon our individualistic mindset that the Western world praises for a collectivist approach to the climate crisis.

Ghosh’s The Great Derangement speaks to the barrier of bourgeois culture or “regularity” and the clear indicators that are telling us as humans that our planet is suffering. This connects directly to Nixon’s observation about witnessing slow violence, as well as Lemenager’s ideas surrounding breaking the barrier between the every day of most people and the every day of those suffering from our world’s demise. With this barrier we notice that people are inclined to look at things on an individual scale rather than the collectivist mindset argued for by both Ghosh and Lemenager that is turned towards protecting our home for generations to come. Towards the end of The Great Derangement, Ghosh begins to describe what the typical cli-fi novel depicts; it is often a dystopian rendition of a world that is almost uninhabitable due to climate change. This is a semi-flawed way in which to write about climate change because climate change is present and part of our world even before the planet declines into almost nothing. Ghosh talks about the genre of cli-fi saying, “it could be said that fiction that deals with climate change is almost by definition not the kind that is taken seriously by serious literary journals: the mere mention of the subject is often enough to relegate a novel or short story to the genre of science fiction,” (Ghosh, 11).

While Nixon argues that slow violence is hard to depict on a large scale when so many novels contain violence that is not slow, Ghosh reminds us that if we were to write a novel that is present in our climate crisis, we would have to move towards collectivist thinking to think towards our future so that the dystopian classic cli-fi novel does not come to pass. With discussions occurring over who is bearing witness and who is actively ignoring the signs of our planet’s decline in favor of everyday life, all three authors are adamant that the cli-fi genre could be successful in raising awareness and calling attention to the things missed in Lemenager’s idea of “dystopian news”. Cli-fi is up against serious challenges based in greed and colonialism and perhaps fiction is the best way to raise empathetic sentiments towards those struggling to adjust to climate change conditions, while promoting a collectivist approach to the problem.