Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community

edited by John A. Grim
contributions by Stephanie Fried, Javier Galicia Silva, Tirso A. Gonzales, Tom Greaves, Manuka Henare, Ogbu U. Kalu, Smitu Kothari, Mary N. MacDonald, Victor D. Montejo, Simeon B. Namunu, Frédérique Apffel-Marglin, Melissa K. Nelson, Richard Nelson, Pramod Parajuli, Darrell Addison Posey, Pradip Prabhu, Leslie E. Sponsel, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Ellen Trevorrow, Tom Trevorrow, Julio Valladolid, Diane Bell, Werner Wilbert, Angel Julian Garcia Zambrano, Maria Elena Bernal-Garcia, J. Peter Brosius, Gregory Cajete Ph.D., Harvey A. Feit, Ann Fienup-Riordan and Jack D. Forbes

Harvard University Press, 2001
Paper: 978-0-945454-28-1
Library of Congress Classification GN470.2.I53 2001
Dewey Decimal Classification 306.08

ABOUT THIS BOOK | REVIEWS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

A new perspective on religions and the environment emerges from this collection. The authors, a diverse group of indigenous and non-native scholars and environmental activists, address compelling and urgent questions facing indigenous communities as they struggle with threats to their own sovereignty, increased market and media globalization, and the conservation of endangered bioregions.

Drawing attention to the pressures threatening indigenous peoples and ways of life, this volume describes modes of resistance and regeneration by which communities maintain a spiritual balance with larger cosmological forces while creatively accommodating current environmental, social, economic, and political changes.

REVIEWS

Contributors to the present volume offer myriad examples that demonstrate ways in which the ancient cosmologies of indigenous traditions are understood as a totality of belief, imagination, and sustainable practices describing a community's relationship to the land. There are in indigenous lifeways no sheltered and isolating constructs that separate religion from nature. Some essays explore the implications of this intimate knowing of one's place for policy makers and activists of the world. Several writers pose "liberative" ecological strategies grounded in indigenous epistemologies. Recommended.
-- L. De Danaan Choice

Confronting readers with the awful human and ecological costs borne by indigenous peoples in an age of globalization, this book also celebrates ecological ethnicities and their creative forms of resistance. If you live on this planet, you need to read this book. If you love this planet, you will want to.
-- Joel Martin, University of California, Riverside

The pressures on indigenous lands and traditions and the commodification of indigenous lands by corporate and government powers are important issues addressed in this volume. The book contains excellent discussions of the continuing exploitation of indigenous peoples in terms of environmental racism as exemplified by the proposed disposal of nuclear wastes on indigenous reservations. It covers ecological, religious, and political issues in a striking way. Brilliant and exemplary!
-- David Kinsley, McMaster University

The articles found in this volume are articulate in laying out the underlying contestations that are threatening the very existence of indigenous people the world over. They reveal how deep and difficult the struggle for a sustainable way of life is among indigenous peoples of the world. The exploitation of resources, the denial of the legitimacy of indigenous religious worldviews, political marginalization, and the struggle of indigenous peoples to find their voice and cooperative empowerment are all themes central to this volume.
-- Lee Irwin, College of Charleston

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