Luke R. Barnesmoore
The Power of Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism, which includes assumptions like ‘humans are superior to animals’ and ‘humans ought to form the essential (if not singular) orient for social, cultural, political, economic, religious, etc. systems’, can clearly be attributed to A.D. Worldview(s)[1] and their hierarchical fetishization of superiority and inferiority (thus comes the privileged place of the myth of ‘man’s dominion of earth’ and of ‘deliverance into the Promised Land through conquest and colonization of ‘the other’’ [Warrior 1989] in the pantheon of myths by which people are indoctrinated into A.D. Worldview[s]), but the more pressing question (and the more difficult question for those of us who have grown up isolated within the A.D. Worldview[s]) comes in understanding that which is deprived by our Anthropocentrism. As Foucault (1971; 1972; 1980; 1994; 2006; 2010; 2011) took care to note, power is as much (if not more) articulated by what is not said as by what is said, by what is necessarily rendered as untrue by a given regime of truth. What truth might we come to understand when liberated from the dogmas of Anthropocentrism?
To begin, however, we should first understand how Anthropocentrism structures what we do think and feel and, thus, how we act. DeLeon (2010) effectively argues that the manner in which we are taught in schools to think, feel about and thus act towards nonhuman animals has direct implications for how we learn to treat ‘the (fallen) other’ that lies at the heart of A.D. Worldview(s). Anthropocentric “construction of nonhumans mirrors the representation of the Other Human in contemporary (people of color, disability or sexuality for example) and historical contexts (such as what occurred in European colonial projects worldwide).” (DeLeon 2010, pp. 2-3) The sense of superiority and notion that we have the right to domineeringly use and abuse that which we deem to be inferior has direct implications for power relations in society. Look, for example, at Trump’s recent (May 2018) comments about unauthorized migrants:
“‘We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — we’re stopping a lot of them,’ Mr. Trump said in the Cabinet Room during an hourlong meeting that reporters were allowed to document. ‘You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people, these are animals, and we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before.’” (Davis 2018)
As Trump and his goons set out to tear children from the arms of mothers (Dickerson 2018) who are attempting to migrate into the US so as to liberate their children from poverty and violence in Latin America (much of which, I would remind the average reality-uprooted xenophobic American, can and should be lain at the feet of historical and contemporary trends like European Colonialism, US Colonialism/Imperialism and the Neoliberal Imperialism of US centered institutions like the IMF and World Bank…), Trump’s rhetoric seeks to render said migrants (‘the other’ in the racist, xenophobic imagination of the Red Hats) as ‘animals’. The ability of Trump and his henchmen to inflict such cruel and malicious forms of suffering upon ‘the other’ (to act in such contravention of the goodness of human nature) while retaining his 30-40% public support is dependent upon rendering ‘the other’ as animal in the minds of his deprived, depraved and in most cases Neoliberal Christian Terrorist (Barnesmoore 2016a) supporters (i.e. the Red Hats). Migrant children are being treated in the same foul manner as our animal and plant kin (and not just under the Trump regime…).
“In this June 18, 2014 photo, two female detainees sleep in a holding cell, as the children are separated by age group and gender, at a US Customs and Border Protection center in Nogales, Arizona. Associated Press/Ross D. Franklin.” (Mark 2018)
Anthropocentrism, in short, facilitates our seeing the world through the lens of superiority, inferiority and the dogmatic assumption that superiority grants the right (and indeed the duty of dominion in the ‘man’s dominion over earth’ paradigm of human-nature relations) to hierarchical dominion over ‘the inferior’ (sic. ‘the other’). Anthropocentrism facilitates severance from the order of (human) nature. ) “…References to human superiority and to species solidarity distance us from the rest of nature.” (Luke 2007, p. 51) It allows us to bear the artificial suffering of others because it leads us to believe (as is all to prevalent with Anthropocentric views of nonhuman animals) that ‘the other’ is not human and thus cannot truly suffer. The factory farm and the slaughterhouse are but a step on the path to the gas chambers.
If Anthropocentrism leads us to see the world in terms of superiority, inferiority and hierarchical domination, what terms does it thus prevent us from seeing the world in? Archibald’s (2008) seven principles for storywork—Respect, Responsibility, Reverence, Reciprocity, Holism, Interrelatedness and Synergy—provide one way of beginning to understand what we can see when unchained from Anthropocentrism. Methot’s (2012) description of Aboriginal Worldviews provides similarly useful sign post for beginning to understand what can be seen when we are not bound by the fetters of Anthropocentrism.
“Although Indigenous peoples are diverse in their cultural practices and perspectives, their worldviews are similar in many basic respects, including a belief in the interconnectedness of all living things. This includes humans as interconnected to other forms of life on the planet, as well as to the planet itself, in an infinite set of systems. This vision of interconnectedness is a spiritual doctrine and provides guidance for the human journey through life. There are different circles of interaction and interdependence – such as family, community, nation, and creation – and within those circles, there are multiple reciprocal relationships (for example, individual to community, and community to the environment). Each life form within each circle is a sacred being; everything has a spirit; and “power with” is valued much more than “power over.” Power over is not considered a true form of power; only in relationships defined by respect, reciprocity, and responsibility do human beings reach their full potential and create just societies. This unified vision contrasts to the artificial fragmentation of systems within other cultures.
In Indigenous cultures, the survival of each life form is dependent on the survival of all others. This is why models such as the medicine wheel are so central to Aboriginal cultures: envisioning the infinite set of connections present within the medicine wheel creates the questions and reflections that guide the human journey (What is the individual’s responsibility to and relationship with the cosmos? To/with the community? To/with the land?). The positive actions of one affect the whole. Likewise, trauma and hardship experienced by all is experienced by the one. Decisions made today must be considered in light of the effect they might have on one’s descendants. Interconnectedness fosters harmony by promoting responsibility and reciprocity, and harmony is considered the most powerful energy in the universe.” (Methot 2012)
Unfettered from Anthropocentrism, the world appears in terms of: 1. ‘Interconnectedness as a spiritual doctrine’; 2. ‘interaction and interdependence’; 3. ‘reciprocal relationships’; 4. ‘each circle is a sacred being; everything has a spirit’; 5. ‘power with’; 6. ‘relationships defined by respect, reciprocity and responsibility’ to ‘create just societies’; 7; ‘unified vision’; 8. ‘responsibility to and relationship with the cosmos’ ‘the community’ and ‘the land’. Anthropocentrism fetishizes and valuates difference in a manner that constrains our vision to a perspective which obfuscates that which ties us together and thus facilitates the illusion of superiority/inferiority by which hierarchical domination is in part made possible. When we are freed from the illusion of totalizing, discrete, biological individuality (of totalizing difference) that is supported by Anthropocentric Myths (as well as the oft 4th dimensionally limited nature of human experiences in passing time and physical space), the world appears as an interconnected, interdependent web of loving reciprocity where order IS (without recourse to hierarchical domination of the inferior by the superior).
Transcending Biocentrism:
Destroying Ecology’s Animate-Inanimate, Organism-Environment Binary
“…One of the key points of weakness in a political ecology perspective to date is the way that non-human animals continue to be depoliticized and assigned to the category of environment.” (Springer Forthcoming, p. 12)
Springer (Forthcoming) provides a beautiful assault on the supremacist-anthropocentric logics of the Artificial-Domineering Worldview as manufactured by stories like Genesis (‘man’s dominion over earth’). I think the next step is an assault on the illusory distinction between the animate and inanimate world. You mention the problem of categorizing animals as part of the environment as a problem. What about the rest of the beings like stones, mountains, bodies of water, stars, the earth herself, etc. that are castigated into the category ‘environment’ by the illusory distinction between animate and inanimate? We need to transcend our biocentrism and the way that it constrains our attribution of consciousness to (and thus our conception of ethical duties towards) the biological world. Plants are not more or less conscious than animals—their consciousness manifests differently. Similarly, inanimate begins are not more or less conscious than animate beings—their consciousness manifests differently. Google’s colonial definition of ecology: “the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.” We need to destroy the worldview embedded in this definition. Biological Organisms vs. Physical Surroundings; Animate vs. Inanimate. A spiritual ecology lens enlivened by Natural-Indigenous Worldview(s) allows us to understand the relationship between all conscious beings without this illusory distinction between the animate and inanimate world and thus to treat all conscious beings, be they stones or people, with the ethical considerations due to a conscious being.
“The promise of working within a transformative framework is that our dialogue about history—our stories and our myths—beckons us not just to understand our paradoxical past, but to finally take that ‘genuine leap of imagination’ to guide our steps today and into the future.” (Regan 2005, p. 10; cited in Young 2015, p. 12)
I am not collecting facts about Indigenous peoples; I am not seeking to speak for or about Indigenous peoples; I cannot tell the story of Indigenous peoples—I am seeking to weave the voices of Indigenous theorists, knowledge holders and elders into my work because their stories about first causes (cosmology), the relationships established therein (ontology) and the teleological imperative(s) of human existence articulated therein have the power (without any mediation by attempts at ‘summarization’, ‘description’ or ‘definition’ on my part) to heal the conception of reality that emerges from the Colonial Modernist incarnation of Artificial-Domineering Worldview(s) (C.M. Worldview[s]/ A.D. Worldview[s]). (Barnesmoore 2018)
How can Natural-Indigenous Worldview(s) (N.I. Worldview[s]) support the sort of anarchist communities (i.e. social order without hierarchical domination where each individual is free to assert their own order of things and is able to do so in a manner that does not unduly infringe upon the ability of others to do so, does not cause undue suffering and fulfills humanity’s role in sustaining[2] the order of nature) proposed by this article? The key of N.I. Worldview that opens the lock of an anarchist society, of a society without hierarchical domination, comes in the N.I. Worldview’s spiritual, ecological understanding of reality. When we develop the four R’s (responsibility, reciprocity, respect, relationships [Young 2015]) through relating to the world in a manner that is facilitated by the N.I. Worldview’s spiritual ecology, a spiritual ecology which ascribes spirits to all things without regard for the Colonial Modernist Worldview’s distinction between ‘animate’ and ‘inanimate’, we come to see the world as a single, living, conscious being. The illusion of discrete demarcation between self and other breaks down and we come to see the self (and other selves) as strands in the conscious web of creation. We come to care for all of creation as we would care for our children, for our partners, for our parents and for our selves. By transcending the illusion of discrete individuality we develop a lovingly reciprocal, responsible, respectful and relational orientation to the world that begets virtuous thought, feeling, behavior and being without recourse to hierarchical authority. Engaging with the world through the N.I. Worldview’s spiritual ecology allows the sprouts of human nature to grow to fruition without recourse to hierarchical domination (i.e. without recourse to attempts to ‘help sprouts grow’ by pulling on them and the death of the sprouts of human nature portended by such hierarchical folly [Meng Zi 2016, 2A2]).
One of the most important ‘understandings of the world we live in and how to change it’ (Smith 2010, p. 569) that is to be gleaned from Indigenous theorists, knowledge keepers and elders comes in their emphasis on the spiritual dimension of the world (animate and inanimate). Given the markedly nefarious spiritual traditions like Greco-Roman Abrahamism (whose angry, vengeful god has a noted penchant for committing genocide, ordering genocide [Warrior 1989], killing entire families, etc. with an air of arrogant moral superiority…) and Greco-Roman Paganism (whose gods constantly come down to earth to rape women and otherwise torment humanity…) that typify the history of western consciousness from which the hierarchical civilization and associated cities that are pushing our world to the edge of extinction in this age were derived, given the many contemporary academics who have responded to this history of nefarious spiritual traditions by accepting the C.M. Worldview and its reduction of reality to passing time and physical space, its reduction of all spiritualty to an ‘opiate of the masses’, its castigation of all those who have spiritual experiences (what Cajete [1994] calls experiences of wholeness[3] and what James [1902] calls religious experiences) to the sphere of mental illness, etc., and given the impossibility of attaining a free, socially just global community without a culture that facilitates humanity’s spiritual development through conscious-cultural evolution therein, it becomes clear that origin and (e)utopian myths-stories provided by Indigenous theorists, knowledge holders and elders which teach us about the spiritual dimension of existence and the spiritual means for transforming our world in a way that is not fettered to the perversions of the A.D. Worldview and its conceptions of order through hierarchical domination are essential for attaining a socially just global anarchist society (a global society that is ordered without hierarchical domination).
“The key learning attributes [of Aboriginal learning] are wholistic, life long, experiential, spiritual, linguistic, communal, and synergistic of Euro-Western and Aboriginal knowledge (Canadian Council on Learning, 2007). Vital to the success of Indigenous pedagogy is an understanding of the connection between spiritual ecology, ethics and relational laws, embedded in Indigenous stories, languages, and cultural practices. The Elders pedagogy includes spiritual ceremonies, the use Indigenous languages and concepts to tell stories, and they demonstrate a synergy between Indigenous Knowledge and Euro-Western education through role modeling. The ceremonies and cultural practices provide and encourage a life long relationship to the plants. Wholistic learning incorporates the aspects of body (senses), mind (thoughts), spirit (understanding of interdependent relationships), the environment (elements of earth, air, water, fire, and plant relationships), cultural customs, socio-economic status and political histories.” (Young 2015, p. 7)
Spiritual ecology, ethics and relational laws. Ethical, interdependent relationships, in short, are dependent upon spiritual ecology, upon the unified relationships between conscious beings that are facilitated by the spiritual dimension of their being. If we accept that ethical interdependent relationships among conscious beings and the duties and responsibilities established therein (Morrison 2011) are facilitated by spiritual ecology, by the relations between the spiritual dimension of beings in a community, then it becomes clear that a socially just world (an ethical, reciprocal, relational world) is not attainable without recourse to a worldview that accepts the spiritual dimension of self and, more generally, the ‘unmanifest’ dimension of reality (Herman 2008).
As noted above, Google defines ecology as “the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.” It seems like it is impossible to differentiate between ‘organisms’ and ‘their environment’ through the spiritual ecological lens provided by N.I. Worldview(s).
“…The categorization process in many Aboriginal languages does not make use of the dichotomies either/or, black/white, saint/sinner. There is no animate/inanimate dichotomy. Everything is more or less animate. If everything is animate, then everything has spirit and knowledge. If everything has spirit and knowledge, then all are like me. If all are like me, then all are my relations.” (Littlebear 2000, p. 78)
Transcending the limitations of the biocentrist social-ontology (Barnesmoore 2016b) that dominates Colonial Modernist thought, which is to say transcending the notion that ‘biological organism’ is the only synonym for ‘conscious being’ by coming to view stones, rivers, clouds, lakes, oceans, mountains, etc. as conscious beings, it becomes clear that the physical environment is as much endowed with spirit as the biological organisms’ that inhabit the physical environment. Stones, rivers, mountains and oceans, like biological organisms (plants and animals), are due the same basic reciprocal duties and responsibilities (i.e. the same basic ethical consideration) as all other conscious beings. I do not deserve more (or less) ethical consideration than the river, than the mountain from which the river runs, than the stones on the floor of the river, than the salmon swimming in the river, than the tree that sits beside the river or than other people who might be paddling across the river’s surface. I am due different consideration based on my differences, but not more or less consideration based on assumptions of superiority-inferiority. I deserve neither more nor less ethical consideration than any of the other conscious beings (animate and what Modernity falsely describes as inanimate) in the ‘valley section’ (Geddes 1915) because, when viewed through a spiritual ecological lens, all of the beings are endowed with spirit (which endows all beings with the right to ethical consideration) and because, when viewed from the perspective of the nature of spirit, there is no true ‘other’ (i.e. all of the conscious beings in the system are both different beings and one, single, whole being).
“In Aboriginal philosophy, existence consists of energy. All things are animate, imbued with spirit, and in constant motion. In this realm of energy and spirit, interrelationships between all entities are of paramount importance….
The idea of all things being in constant motion or flux leads to a holistic and cyclical view of the world. If everything is constantly moving and changing, then one has to look at the whole to begin to see patterns.” (Littlebear 2000, pp. 77-78)
Spiritual ecology is essential for understanding ethics and relational laws, in short, because spiritual ecology teaches us that: 1. the different members of the natural community, from the waters to the lands to the plants and the animals to the skies, are all endowed with spirit and thus due the same basic intensity of ethical consideration with sensitivity to the different and irregular needs of different beings in different environmental contexts and 2. all of nature, endowed with spirit, is a single, living, unified whole (which means that if any part of the whole is due ethical consideration with sensitivity to the difference and irregularity of manifestation then every part of the whole is due such ethical consideration). A virtuous society is dependent upon our ability to see both the underlying unity and the manifest differences of conscious beings without either interfering with the other (to understand the world from both the relative-manifest and Nothing-Infinite Eternal perspectives without either interfering with the other [Cleary 1999, p. 108]) because a virtuous society must give basic ethical consideration to all that which is part of the great whole (i.e. to all conscious beings) in a manner that is sensitive to the differences and irregularities of each being’s existence.
“In retraining our sensory awareness to remember how we are related to the rest of Creation, we provide one intervention that seeks to decolonize the body’s sense of disconnection and provide an entry point for the Indigenous legal principle of Nindinaweymaganidog—All My Relations. Sinclair (2013) notes:
Nindinawemaganidog is the principle that the universe is a multidimensional web with entities that rely on each other to live. Nindinawemaganidog is not the vague romantic chant of “we are all related” found in new-age books but is a binding, critical philosophy. It is, for most Anishinaabeg, a law devised through interactions between two Anishinaabeg philosophical principles: enawendiwin, the spiritual and material connections Anishinaabeg share with entities throughout Creation and waawiyeyaag, a law of circularity that gives shape, meaning, and purpose to the universe. (p. 105)” (Young 2015, p. 109)
Ecological justice requires that we afford all of nature, from humans through the falsely labeled inanimate world to the earth as a whole and the whole universe in which the earth rests, the ethical consideration due to any conscious being (i.e. any being with a spirit). Ecological justice is dependent upon the relationship we hold with the rest of nature, and the relationship we hold with the rest of reality is dependent upon the ontology by which we categorize the reality of the rest of nature. We cannot attain ecological justice without destroying illusory ontological binaries like animate-inanimate and organism-environment by which we have created the potential for unvirtuous, supremacist, hierarchically domineering relationships with the rest of nature.
The Politics of Animacy in Language
“…The categorization process in many Aboriginal languages does not make use of the dichotomies either/or, black/white, saint/sinner. There is no animate/inanimate dichotomy. Everything is more or less animate. If everything is animate, then everything has spirit and knowledge. If everything has spirit and knowledge, then all are like me. If all are like me, then all are my relations.” (Littlebear 2000, p. 78)
Chen’s (2012) Animacies wanders through the hierarchical ontology of animacy that has been enshrined in the English language.
“English speakers unfamiliar with the idea of animacy engage it whenever they decide between using the pronouns he, she, or it.” (Parreñas 2013)
If you’ve grown up speaking the English language the animistic hierarchy assumed by the language is commonsensical. Animals have fur. People have hair. Animals are that, people are who. Plants are that, people are who. As you’ll discover through this text, I have often written angry footnotes about the de-spiriting ‘ontological violence’ (Blaser 2013) embedded in the Microsoft Word dictionary. When I am talking about my tree friends the dictionary tells me I should use the terms ‘it/that’ rather than ‘who’. When I am talking about my owl and eagle friends the dictionary tells me to use the terms ‘it/that’ rather than ‘who’. Spirits? Same thing. Only people get to be ‘who’ in the colonial ontology of the Microsoft Word dictionary.
One of my dear friends skillfully dances back and forth across the line between masculinity and femininity. People are often confused about her gender/sexuality because they need a category to put her in… We were on a trip together and one of the people on the trip who we didn’t know asked me a quite disturbing question. ‘It?’ I was horrified. Disgusted even. I know the young person asking the question had good intentions—s/he wanted to use my friend’s preferred pronoun—but instinctually, having spoken and read the English language my whole life, my blood boiled at the de-spiriting implications of calling someone ‘it’. Calling someone ‘it’ implies that the person has no spirit and thus that the person lacks sovereignty (the right to loving care, healthy bliss and self/collective determination). My friend had the same response when I told her the story. She has read enough. Listened to enough speech. She could feel the de-spiriting implications…
C.M. Worldview(s)—in stripping spirit from all of reality—take the politics of animacy in the MegaMachine to a new plateau of perversion. Now there isn’t even a hierarchy of spirit. There is no spirit. Nothing has inherent sovereignty. Nothing is bound into a whole by spiritual ecology. Everything is cast to the inanimate dungeons that lie at the bottom of A.D. Worldview(s) hierarchical ontology of animacy…
Anyway, I endeavor to avoid the English language’s hierarchical ontology of animacy as much as possible because one of the central themes of my work is ‘all beings—from stars to planets to stones and mountains to rivers and oceans to plants, animal and beyond—have spirit (and thus innate individual/collective sovereignty)’. The authority to assert the order of relationships lies in all things. It emerges from the liminal space(s) between time and the timeless who exists in all things. We cannot virtuously relate to the rest of our relations if we do not understand the innate animacy of all beings and the spiritual-ecological web who thus binds all who is into a loving, blissful, beautiful whole. I use ‘who’ to refer to anything who & s/he is natural and I use that & it to describe anything that is rooted in privation like the MegaMachine, A.D. Worldview(s) and the things that emerge from them. I use who/that to describe wicked things that have (or might potentially have) both natural and artificial roots. Perhaps I should only use who/that. Is there anything that is only rooted in privation? Is there anything that is only that? Perhaps, but if so it is the nefarious one… Most things like sickened subjectivities should probably be who/that as sickness never quite strips the eternal goodness out of something. I also try to break down the distinction between noun and verb by using ‘who’ to describe natural processes and relationships. I am not sure I will have time to draw this new linguistic structure out across this entire text (nor that I should as it might detract from the text’s capacity to reflect the evolution of consciousness ad its linguistic expression that has occurred through the process of writing this text[4]), but I will do so at least for the entirety of this introductory chapter.
Editing a text towards breaching the hierarchical ontology of animacy established by terms like ‘that’ and ‘who’ (‘it’ and ‘sh/e’) has formed a wicked good pedagogical pathway for learning about both the understandings of relationships between things and the eternal who/that are commonsensically assumed in the linguistic structures by which I express myself as well as the relationships between things and the eternal assumed by my worldview(s). The two are often markedly distinct—my linguistic structures too often reflect the hierarchical ontologies of animacy that arise from A.D. Worldview(s) and are embedded in the English language; where as my worldview(s) ascribe animacy to all which IS (not rooted in the privation of the eternal from which A.D. Worldview(s) and the MegaMachine emerge[d]). I have been reminded of a lesson who I have been learning for a while—a shift in worldview is one thing, and the work of then transforming our linguistic structures to reflect the new world(s) in which we come to exist through worldview transformations is another. After we transform our worldview(s) we must then work to transform our linguistic structures to reflect our new worldview(s). The same can be said for the rest of our manifest patterns—a shift in worldview comes in the moment of death and rebirth from the liminal space between two incommensurable worldview(s), but the decolonial work of transforming our patterns (linguistic, behavioral, mental, emotional, etc.) to reflect the new patterns who/that emerge from our new worldview(s) is a process.
Luke R. Barnesmoore
UBC Urban Studies Lab
Department of Geography
University of British Columbia
luke.barnesmoore@geog.ubc.ca
Bibliography:
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Barnesmoore 2016a, “Neoliberal Christian Extremism, Trump and the Apocalypse”, Vancouver: University of British Columbia.
https://www.academia.edu/31792802/Neoliberal_Christian_Extremism_Trump_and_the_Apocalypse
Barnesmoore 2016b, “Conscious vs. Mechanical Evolution: Transcending Biocentrist Social Ontologies”, Environment and Social Psychology 1(2).
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[1] Artificial-Domineering Worldview(s). See Barnesmoore (2018b) for a discussion of Artificial-Domineering Worldview(s) and Original-Natural-Indigenous Worldview(s) (O.N.I. Worldview[s]).
[2] Humanity’s purpose, our teleological imperative as it emerges from the N.I. Worldview, is to sustain the order of nature, not to conquer, colonize and destroy it as we are instructed by the A.D. and C.M. Worldview(s).
“As a result of their long and sustained relationship to the natural world, they are able to identify stresses between the human community and the natural landscape, and therefore advise on ways to restore the harmony of relationship. Understanding, maintaining, and restoring harmonious relationships are also foundations of Native science.” (Cajete 2000, p. 22)
Morrison (2011) posits a similar understanding of the duties and responsibilities of humanity in our relationship with the rest of the natural world:
“Food is a gift from the Creator. In this respect, the right to food is sacred and cannot be constrained or recalled by colonial laws, policies or institutions. Indigenous food sovereignty is ultimately achieved by upholding our long-standing sacred responsibilities to nurture healthy, interdependent relationships with the land, plants and animals that provide us with our food.” (Morrison 2011, p. 100)
[3] “The phrases seeking life, for life’s sake, to find life, to complete, to become complete, of good heart, of good thought, with harmony, and a host of related combinations, have translations in all Indian languages…. They imply a journey of learning to know life in all its manifestations—especially those of the spirit—and through this journey expreince a state of wholeness.” (Cajete 1994, p. 44)
[4] For example, through the process of writing this text I have moved from ‘Indigenous Worldview’ to ‘Natural-Indigenous Worldview(s)’ to ‘Original-Natural-Indigenous Worldview(s)’. I moved from ‘Infinite Substance’ to ‘Nothing-Infinite Substance’ to ‘Nothing-Infinite Eternal’. In these two cases I am probably going to shift the language across the text to cohere to the final iteration as I see the older iterations as inherently problematic, but in other cases I will try to preserve some of the old iterations to remain so that something of the evolution of language who has occurred through this Nomadic Wandering is preserved. Perhaps I will leave the old iterations in some chapters and replace the old iterations with the newest iterations in others. We shall see where the process takes me!
Institute for Interdisciplinary Research into the Anthropocene 