UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Trans-Species Hauntology and Relational Being in Amitav Ghosh’s Ghost-Eye: From Ecological Memory to Rights of Nature

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.11

Authors

Sahabuddin Ahamed · Praveen Toppo

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.966757+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-10T16:58:51.471772+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Pandit Sundarlal Sharma Open University

Reported affiliation countries

IN

Documentary abstract — original language

This article reads Amitav Ghosh's Ghost-Eye (2025) in the light of relationality, challenging and disrupting anthropocentric assumptions.Starting with the uncanny scene of a child remembering the taste of fish from a past life, the novel unfolds as a complex meditation on memory, reincarnation, environmental crisis, and multispecies entanglements, in which human identity is revealed as emergent through its relations with animals, environments, spirits, and histories.Through the intersection of postcolonial ecocriticism, hauntology, and Indian philosophical ideas such as ethical responsibility, reciprocity, and cosmic continuity, this article investigates how the novel challenges the binary distinctions of human and nonhuman, nature and culture, self and other, and past and present, by building a world where consciousness, matter, and memory are intermingled.Nature, here, is not passive but active: trees call forth snakes, rivers have memory, and ecological systems retaliate against human violence with ethical force, while spectrality and sensory memory show that the past haunts both bodies and landscapes.The novel's postcolonial dimension highlights how environmental harm is intertwined with the legacies of empire, inequality, and epistemic violence, thereby linking ecological crises to global injustice.Additionally, the novel integrates spiritual ontology with current legal and ethical discussions on nonhuman rights, advocating for an ecological-ethical approach that emphasises interdependence and responsibility.Ultimately, this article argues that Ghost-Eye does not merely represent interconnectedness of humans, nature, and ecological systems; it enacts it philosophically, inviting readers to understand reality as an interdependent network of life.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W7204992890

DOI

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.11

OPENAIRE

doi_________::3aaf6c360d579bce81ed0ad698e9b332

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

Article · article

Natural entities mentioned

River · Species · Landscape

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAIRE · Record 1

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.11
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7204992890

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• openalex:w1981826719 · CITES
• openalex:w2062060348 · CITES
• openalex:w2499890193 · CITES
• Can Rights of Nature Make Development More Sustainable? Why Some Ecuadorian lawsuits Succeed and Others Fail · CITES
• Creating legal rights for rivers: Lessons from Australia, New Zealand, and India · CITES
• openalex:w3173385049 · CITES
• openalex:w4233063746 · CITES

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.