Ploughing the Field: YA Literature and Justice in the Anthropocene

In lieu of an abstract: In an age of climate collapse, systemic inequality, war, and mass displacement, the narratives through which we make sense of the world matter more than ever. As Hubert Zapf argues, “literature is a form of cultural knowledge which stages, in the medium of language and discourse itself, complex dynamical processes of life on the boundary of the culture-nature interaction” (865). YA fiction, in particular, can serve as a charged site where dominant ideologies are both reinforced and challenged, offering young people ways of recognising their social realities while imagining alternative futures. Through the experiences of protagonists navigating worlds that are metaphorically and literally burning, YA illuminates how narrative itself can become a tool for negotiating power and agency under conditions of ecological precarity.