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Intersections of Ecology, Activism, and Social Transformation: Alternative Paradigms and Movements

Submitted to Program Units
1: Class, Religion, and Theology Unit and Religion and Ecology Unit

Joseph Wiebe, University of Alberta, Augustana, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

This panel offers alternative ecological paradigms and social movements that intersect with environmental activism across cultural and religious landscapes. The first paper introduces the concept of maroon ecologies, highlighting their resistance against property-driven conceptions of freedom and relevance for alternative socialities in neoliberal capitalism. The second paper examines the interplay between labor, faith, and land reform in El Salvador, emphasizing the role of liberative Christian visions to foster solidarity and cooperative engagement with the environment. The third paper focuses on Kallen Pokkudan, the 'mangrove man' of Kerala, analyzing his ecological activism through new materialist theory and addressing the challenges faced by the Dalit Pulaya community. The editors of "Liberating People, Planet, and Religion '' connect the discussion to Christianity's ability to challenge exploitative capitalism and promote ecological and economic justice for the flourishing of all beings. Together, these papers offer critical insights into environmental activism, faith-based solidarity, Dalit identity, and religion’s potential for social transformation.

Papers

  • Blair Wilner, University of Virginia

    "I ran from it and was still in it": Maroon Ecology in a Neoliberal World

    Abstract

    This paper examines the burgeoning field of maroon ecologies: environmental thinking about and with those people who escaped from slavery and built alternative societies apart from the plantation regime. Rather than representing yet another back-to-the-land approach to ecology, marronage is a useful paradigm for resisting conceptions of freedom grounded in property. This paper first considers how Lockean understandings of the relationship between property and labor result in a conception of freedom as self-ownership—which also transform humanity’s relationship to the other-than-human world. The second section then considers how marronage’s relationship to land—especially the provision grounds and wild landscapes—interact to form an alternative sociality to that imposed by capitalism’s property regime. Finally, the paper considers the challenge of thinking marronage in the context of neoliberalism. How can maroon ecology—an imaginary shaped by the act of escape—help us in a moment in which neoliberal capitalism seems virtually omnipresent?

  • Wilson Dickinson, Lexington Theological Seminary

    Christ in the Plantationocene: Land, Labor, and People’s Movements in El Salvador

    Abstract

    This paper explores the intersection of labor and the environment in the geography of the plantation and cooperative efforts that have sought to resist and transform it. Specifically, it considers the constructive role that liberative visions of Christ have played in people’s movements for land reform in El Salvador, especially in the late 20th century. These efforts are rooted in forms of solidarity between workers, faith communities, and the land. Further, I propose that the witness of these traditions can serve to cultivate deep solidarity with professional class communities in North America, as it provides systemic understanding of issues of migration and farm labor, and articulates alternative constructive visions of cooperatively working and dwelling with the land.

  • Baiju Markose, Lutheran School of Theology At Chicago

    Emplaced Subjectivity and Arboreal Activism: A Study of Kallen Pokkudan's Oiko-Autobiography

    Abstract

    This proposal aims to explore the intersection of environmental activism, Dalit identity, and ecological philosophy through an analysis of Kallen Pokkudan's autobiography, "Kandalkaadukalkidayil Ente Jeevitham." Pokkudan, renowned as the 'mangrove man' of Kerala, offers a unique perspective on the reestablishment of mangrove forests and the challenges faced by the Dalit Pulaya community in Kerala's Kannur district. Through his narrative, Pokkudan not only recounts his life story but also reflects on the historical dehumanization of Dalits within India's caste system and the potential for societal transformation.

    This study will employ new materialist theory, particularly object-oriented ontology (O-O-O), to analyze Pokkudan's ecological activism as a form of "arboreal activism" and "dark ecology." By emphasizing emplaced subjectivity and distributed agency, Pokkudan challenges caste-based discrimination and anthropocentric supremacies, advocating for a relational way of being rooted in deep solidarity and egalitarianism.

    Keywords: Kallen Pokkudan, Dalit identity, mangrove forests, ecological activism, object-oriented ontology, casteism


           

  • Joerg Rieger, Vanderbilt University
    Terra Schwerin Rowe, University of North Texas

    Liberating People, Planet, and Religion: Intersections of Ecology, Economics, and Christianity

    Abstract

    Too often, religious engagements with economy and ecology have placed emphasis on individual morality, action, and agency at the level of consumption patterns or have suggested mere modifications within existing economic paradigms. Contributors to a new volume — Liberating People, Planet, and Religion: Intersections of Ecology, Economics, and Christianity, which will be published in July 2024 (Roman and Littlefield) — call into question the adequacy of this approach in light of the urgency of climate change which is always ever entwined with ongoing patterns of exploitation, oppression, and colonialism in current economic systems. The basic intuition driving this volume is that while Christianity has by and large become the handmaiden of exploitative capitalism and empire, it might also reclaim latent theologies and religious practices that call into question the fundamental valuation of labor without recognition or rest, of extractive exploitation, and a “winner take all” praxis. The volume's editors, Joerg Rieger and Terra Schwerin Rowe, will discuss the conceptual framework of the volume and some of the key insights it gathers.

Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes

Schedule Preference

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Schedule Info

Saturday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Tags

neoliberalism
environment
solidarity
dalit
Migration
Labor
liberation
land
Ontology
#ecology
#marronage
#property
#labor
#neoliberalism

Session Identifier

A23-309