African Traditional Religious-Ecotopian Visions: Problems and

Promise

Paper presented at the 3rd ACLARS Conference, 17-20 May 2015, Windhoek, Namibia

ByNisbert Taisekwa Taringa

Associate Professor, University of Zimbabwe, Department of Religious Studies, Classics and

Philosophy

Introduction• global recognition for a need for a new, more

environmentally friendly/benign imagination of nature,

• seeing it as active, meaningful, subjective and spiritual, re-evaluating it, devaluing humanity somewhat recognizing it as part of nature, encouraging caring human action towards it.

• religion a possible influential source of new recognition of nature, linking humanity to a wider environmental reality and providing the existential support, moral authority and institutional organization able to address environmental issues.(Watling, 2009:2-3).

Ecotopia: Definition/Assumption• idealized(utopian) religious imaginations of nature and the human

place in it, envisaging a more environmentally oriented humanity in a cooperative, harmonic, interdependent, sacred, relationship with nature( Watling, 2009)

• Ecotopia imagines a more environmentally friendly, cooperative, humble and spiritual, humanity in tune with nature,

• Visions of humanity in harmony with nature• Key assumption: the social construction of nature, nature is

always an idea, an imagination, and the way it is imagined leads to the way humanity interacts with it, dominating or liberating , degrading or protecting it,.

• Analysing the role of myth and religious beliefs in creating an ecological reimagination of nature

• Reviewing the myth and religious beliefs in the Shona religious ecotopian visions

• Ecological genocide is underpinned by a visions of nature

Western Worldview• Dominant modern western worldview• the social construction of nature, • what is known as nature in the modern context,

limited , based particular cultural assumptions • ontological dualism-a mechanical imagination,

creating a view of nature as separate from, and lower than humanity

• Counter imaginations of nature and humanity are needed

• based on African relational personhood, relational ontology, and relational epistemology

Shona Ecotopian Visions• Shona myth of creation: The mwedzi(moon) myth• Mwari making the first human called Mwedzi

(moon) bottom of the pool (dziva).• Mwedzi asked to go out to the dry land. Mwari

gave him a wife called Masasi to accompany him. The two lived in a cave. They gave birth to grass, bushes and trees.

• Masasi went back to the pool. Mwari gave Mwedzi another wife called Morongo. Morongo gave birth to all kinds of animals.

• Eventually she bore boys and girls.

Analysis and Discussion• RELATIONAL ONTOLOGY:• develop an awareness and sense of self and others; • a sense of belonging, coming to know our responsibilities and ways to

relate to the self and others• focus our attention on our interrelatedness and our interdependence with

each other and our greater surroundings • NYIKA(COUNTRY), is not only the land and the people,• also the entities water bodies, animals, plants, climate, skies, spirits. One

entity not be raised above another entity as these live in close relationship with one another.

• All things recognised for their place on the overall system. TOTEMISM, MASHURA(OMENS)

• relationships are not oppositional, nor binary, • relations serve to define and unite, not oppose or alienate

Conclusion:african traditional religious visions• how one relates with nature, part of Hunhu/ubuntu• worldview , a seamless interconnection between the divine, human and

natural worlds. An anthropocosmic worldview. • Nature is not of secondary importance• heart =an animistic relational epistemology. • Divine human relations not more important than relationship between

humans and the natural, =dark green; • turns attention to we-ness. • against materialistic framing of the environment as discrete things ,

fosters a relationality which frames the environment as “nested relatedness.”

• not premised on the dichotomous opposition of culture and nature. • privileges knowing how to behave within relations in order to nourish

these relations more than knowing things in and for themselves as objects separate from the knower.

• Based on relational ontology, relational personhood and relational epistemology

• fosters a relational perception of the environment.

Thank You