Indigenous temporality and climate change in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (2006)

This article considers Alexis Wright’s 2006 novel Carpentaria in relation to climate change and temporality. Through an appraisal of previous critical work on the novel, an analysis of its anti-linear structure and stylistic organization, and close textual engagement with the novel’s latent critique of western temporal frameworks, it argues that Carpentaria presents a specifically Indigenous Waanyi temporality of climate change and environmental damage that resists a linear Anthropocene teleology, whilst registering the threat of climate change and environmental disaster to Indigenous livelihoods. This approach identifies the inherent problems with linear understandings of time, and defines how these are entangled with the silencing of Aboriginal histories and threat to Indigenous survival. Ultimately, the article argues that the novel’s centralizing of Indigenous experience articulates a specific Indigenous Australian cultural approach to climate change and environmental disaster, which should be included in global conversations on climate change literature.