Gendered Trauma and Ecological Witness: Post-Victimology in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees

Abstract

This paper examines the interplay between gendered trauma and eco-resistance in a post-victimology perspective in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees. Drawing on feminist trauma theory, ecocriticism, and postcolonial theory, the dissertation explores how trauma is expressed through the gendered bodies and natural landscape in the context of the Cyprus conflict. Through close textual analysis, this article demonstrates how Shafak unsettles conventional victimhood narratives, foregrounding intergenerational healing, narrative authority, and the agency of nonhuman agents—including a fig tree that serves as a witness and participant in memory and resistance. The results also introduce a new paradigm for understanding trauma literature of the Anthropocene, where human and ecological memory are inextricably interconnected.