Toward Biotic Justice: An
Organismic and TCM Ecocritical Reading of Kincaid’s A Small
Place
Chen Liping
ABSTRACT
This paper proposes an interdisciplinary
analytical framework “TCM Ecology” to re-read Jamaica Kincaid’s
postcolonial text A Small Place as a diagnostic case study of a
geographic organism under neocolonial siege. Synthesizing the
classical medical ontology of the Huangdi Neijing (Su Wen) with
postcolonial ecocriticism, the study demonstrates that Antigua’s
environmental and infrastructural degradation, such as chronic
droughts, leaded atmospheric pollution, marine sewage contamination,
and reliance on imported food supply chains, represent somatic
symptoms of systemic pathology. Through TCM taxonomy, these spatial
traumas are diagnosed as yin deficiency, qi and blood stagnation,
and metabolic/excretory breakdown caused by imperial exploitation
and political corruption. Building on theoretical synthesis of the
Su Wen, this paper argues that Kincaid’s confrontational,
second-person narrative strategy functions as an active, purgative
clinical intervention to unblock stagnant historical memory, and
drain the toxic myths of neocolonial dependency. Ultimately, this
study provides a novel diagnostic vocabulary for the environmental
and medical humanities, demonstrating how integrating traditional
medical concepts with literary critique illuminates structural
violence on a macro-somatic scale while charting a path toward
biotic justice and organismic restoration.
Key words: Jamaica Kincaid; A Small Place; TCM Ecology; Narrative
Acupucture; Environmental and Medical Humanities; Biotic Justice
