How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.
How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.
Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.
Part. I. From derogatory to critical term 1. From primitives to persons Part. II. Animist case studies 2. Ojibwe language 3. Maori arts 4. Aboriginal law and land 5. Eco-pagan activism Part. III. Animist issues 6. Signs of life and personhood 7. Death 8. Spirits, powers, creators and souls 9. Shamans 10. Cannibalism 11. Totems 12. Elders and ethics Part. IV. Animism's challenges 13. Environmentalisms 14. Consciousness 15. Philosophers and persons
Graham Harvey (PhD, Religion, Newcastle) is Professor of Religious Studies at the Open University, London. He is the author of Animism: Respecting the Living World (Columbia/Hurst, 2005), Food, Sex, and Strangers: Understanding Religion in Everyday Life (Routledge, 2013), and Listening People, Speaking Earth: Contemporary Paganism 2/e (Hurst/NYU, 1997) and the editor of a number of books, including Handbook of Contemporary Animusm (Routledge, 2013), The Paganism Reader (Routledge, 2004), Shamanism: A Reader (Routledge, 2003), Indigenous Religions: A Companion (Palgrave, 2000), and Sensual Religion: Religion and the Five Senses (Equinox, 2018).
No recent author has emphasized it or dealt with its implications as thoroughly as Harvey.Choice Choice The strengths of this book are its fluid and engaging...writing; its openly committed stand on the central question, i.e., whether or not animals, plants, rivers, etc. are people, and its use of major ethnographic sources as evidence, together with conversations with indigenous peoples. -- Stewart Guthrie, Fordham University
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