Settler colonising the Apocalypse: Hannah Swearingen, Fu Otani, Sara Siddiqui, Ekem Dhesi, ‘Postcolonialisms in Post-Apocalyptic Landscapes: Colonially-Driven Environmental Degradation and Coloniality in Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’, Trail Six, 19, 2025, pp. 68-76 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonising the Apocalypse: Hannah Swearingen, Fu Otani, Sara Siddiqui, Ekem Dhesi, ‘Postcolonialisms in Post-Apocalyptic Landscapes: Colonially-Driven Environmental Degradation and Coloniality in Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’, Trail Six, 19, 2025, pp. 68-76

23Mar25

Abstract: This paper builds on postcolonial and Indigenous climate change studies’ understanding of environmental degradation as a mode of colonial domination. We argue that a parallel can be drawn between the subjugation of Indigenous peoples under settler colonialism and that of both wajin – the dominant group – and Indigenous peoples (Ainu, Uchinanchu) of Japan under US imperialism. These groups’ similar experiences of inferiorization and subjugation under Eurocentric coloniality has generated a rich literary tradition of liberational futurities, expressed in Indigenous science fiction and Japanese apocalyptic science fiction. Through an analysis of Hayao Miyasaki’s (1984) film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, we argue for the subversion of colonial discourses as a powerful and necessary action in order to combat contemporary colonial oppression and environmental degradation.

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