Meshwork Ecology: Climate and Colonialism in Diene's Hell Freezes Over and Ruga's Public Service Announcement

ABSTRACT: Within global academia, activism, and cultural production there has been a turn towards what I conceptualize as meshwork ecology . Here, the relationality and interdependency of all earthbound things are emphasized, as is the multiplicity of human and nonhuman ontologies and epistemologies existing on the planet. This paper demonstrates how reading for meshwork ecological elements can bring to light new features of ecocentric African speculative fiction. After unpacking my understanding of meshwork ecology, I read for certain meshwork ecological elements the novella "Hell Freezes Over" by Mame Bougouma Diene and the short film Public Service Announcement by Athipatra Ruga. I show how reading for meshwork ecological elements illuminates four central aspects of these texts: 1) the interrogation of colonial ways of inhabiting the earth, 2) the centering of interconnectedness and relationality with the nonhuman, 3) thinking with multiple temporalities, and 4) exploring assemblages that involve technology, humanity, and the nonhuman. I expound on how I understand these texts in conversation with meshwork ecological scholarship as examples of planetary resonances, in this case a shared engagement with the looming reality of climate change and the pressing need to rethink how humanity relates to the nonhuman world.