Eco-Dystopian Narratives and Digital Technologies: Sustainability and Resistance in Contemporary Climate Fiction

Abstract

Eco-dystopian narratives in contemporary climate fiction critically examine the entanglement of ecological crisis and digital technologies within late-capitalist societies. This paper analyzes Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future to explore how digital and techno-scientific systems function as both agents of environmental destruction and instruments of sustainability and resistance. Atwood’s speculative dystopia exposes the dangers of unchecked biotechnologies, corporate digital control, and data-driven consumerism that accelerate ecological collapse and ethical erosion. In contrast, Robinson’s climate realist narrative foregrounds the strategic use of digital technologies such as financial algorithms, climate modeling, and global data networks, as tools for collective governance, ecological accountability, and sustainable intervention. Through a comparative reading, the paper argues that while Oryx and Crake presents technology as a cautionary force reinforcing eco-dystopia, The Ministry for the Future reimagines digital infrastructures as potential catalysts for climate justice and resistance against fossil-fuel capitalism. Together, these texts articulate divergent yet complementary visions of eco-dystopian futures, emphasizing the urgent need for ethical technological engagement, global cooperation, and sustainable environmental praxis in the face of planetary crisis.