Rooted Kinship and Storied Matter: Relational Ontologies and the Ethics of Coexistence in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1703.09Keywords:
relational philosophy, ethics of coexistence, indigenous epistemologies, ecological phenomenology, memory and traumaAbstract
This article analyzes Elif Shafak’s novel The Island of Missing Trees (2022) to articulate a stringent relational ontology and an ethics of coexistence that profoundly challenges anthropocentric and ethno-nationalist paradigms. Set against the backdrop of the Cypriot conflict and its diasporic aftermath, the novel foregrounds the interconnectedness between human identity, history, and the non-human world, primarily through the narrative voice of a fig tree. Grounding the analysis in relational philosophy, Indigenous epistemologies, and ecological phenomenology, this study contends that the fig tree functions as a materially embedded, agential, and ethical subject. Its longevity and capacity to archive trauma demonstrate that memory and healing are intra-active processes shared across species and generations. By operationalizing concepts such as intra-action and the Honorable Harvest, the research reveals how Shafak constructs a model of “rooted kinship” that prioritizes interdependence, reciprocity, and a non-human perspective on historical rupture and ecological survival. The novel, therefore, serves as a literary space for reimagining ethical accountability and trans-species coexistence in the context of global ecological and political fragmentation.
References
Abram, D. (1996). The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in A More Than Human World. Pantheon Books.
Aspoy, H. (2024). Forest Science Between Human and Nonhuman Agency. Trees, Forests, and People, 15, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tfp.2023.100485
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.
Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Duke University Press.
Coccia, E. (2020). The life of plants: A metaphysics of mixture. Polity Press.
DeLoughrey, E. (2019). Allegories of the Anthropocene. Duke University Press.
Elgamal, A. M. A. (2024). Branching Paths of Pain: Trauma and Ecocriticism in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees. Egyptian Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, 13(1), 37-60. https://doi.org.10.21608/ejels.2024.413598
Fottouh, N. (2025). An eco feminist depiction of Elif Shafak’s The Island of the Missing Trees. Journal of the Faculty of Arts–Fayoum University, 17(1), 606-639. https://doi.org/10.21608/jfafu.2025.362994.2188
Ghosh, A. (2021). The nutmeg’s curse: Parables for a planet in crisis. University of Chicago Press.
Gibson‐Reinemer, D. K., Sheldon, K. S., & Rahel, F. J. (2015). Climate Change Creates Rapid Species Turnover in Montane Communities. Ecology and Evolution, 5(12), 2340-2347. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1518
Guattari, F., & Deleuze, G. (1978). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Haraway, D. J. (2008). When species meet. University of Minnesota Press.
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying With the Trouble. Duke University Press.
Huggan, G., & Tiffin, H. (2010). Postcolonial ecocriticism: Literature, animals, environment. Routledge.
Ingold, T. (2011). Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description. Routledge.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.
Kohn, E. (2013). How forests think: Toward an anthropology beyond the human. University of California Press.
Laheg, I. (2024). Identity crisis as intergenerational trauma progeny in Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees. New Literaria: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 5(1), 1–7. https://newliteraria.com/articles/v05i1/abs-v05i1-01.pdf. Retrieved 29 November, 2025, 12:31:04.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
Levinas, E. (1991). Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority (A. Lingis, Trans.). Duquesne University Press. (Original work published 1969)
Li, Yafei. (2025). Encountering the Non-Human with Narrative Form: J. M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals. Kritika Kultura: 47(10), 193-206. https://doi.org/10.13185/1656-152X.2186
O’Neill, S. (2023). Arborealities, or Making Trees Matter in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 31(4), 796-816. https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isad040
Powers, R. (2018). The overstory. W. W. Norton & Company.
Plumwood, V. (2002). Environmental culture: The ecological crisis of reason. Routledge.
Rothberg, M. (2009). Multidirectional memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the age of decolonization. Stanford University Press.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2021). Anthropocene (in)securities: Reflections on Collective Survival 50 years after the Stockholm Conference (E. Lövbrand & M. Mobjörk, Eds.). Oxford University Press.
Sabbah, S., & Ayuningtyas, P. (2022). The issues of diaspora and displacement in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees. Rainbow: Journal of Literature, Linguistics and Culture Studies, 11(2), 62-69. https://doi.org/10.15294/rainbow.v11i2.58682
Sangha, K. K., Russell-Smith, J., & Costanza, R. (2019). Mainstreaming indigenous and local communities’ connections with nature for policy decision making. Global Ecology and Conservation, 19, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00668
Shafak, E. (2022). The Island of Missing Trees. Penguin Books.
Simpson, L. B. (2017). As we have always done: Indigenous freedom through radical resistance. University of Minnesota Press.
Sumer, M. (2022). Memory and nature in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees. Journal of Literary Studies, 38(4), 421–435.
Tsing, A. L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press.
Watts, V. (2013). Indigenous place-thought and agency amongst humans and non-humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!). Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 2(1), 20-34. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/19145. Retrieved 27 November, 2025, 9:40:04.
Zehra, S., & Mohsin, L. A. (2023). Rootless Identity in Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees: A Postcolonial Perspective. Journal of Policy Research, 9(1), 395-401 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8000551
