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Sacred Custodians of the Earth?
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Sacred Custodians of the Earth?
Women, Spirituality and the Environment
Edited by Alaine Low and Soraya Tremayne
Berghahn Books
New York • Oxford
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First published in 2001 by Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
© 2001 Alaine Low and Soraya Tremayne
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by
any means without the written permission of Berghahn Books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sacred custodians of the earth? : women, spirituality, and the
environment / edited by Alaine Low and Soraya Tremayne.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57181-467-1 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-57181-316-0 (alk. paper)
(pbk. : acid-free paper)
1. Ecofeminism--Religious aspects--Congresses. 2. Human ecology--
Religious aspects--Congresses. 3. Women and religion--Congresses.
I. Low, Alaine M. II. Tremayne, Soraya.
HQ1233.S135 2001
305.42--dc21 2001035409
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library.
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper
ISBN 1-57181-467-1 hardback
ISBN 1-57181-316-0 paperback
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Contents
Preface vii
Contributors ix
1. Introduction 1
Alaine Low and Soraya Tremayne
PART I – THE CURRENT DEBATE
2. Gender, Nature and Trouble with Anti-Dualism 23
Cecile Jackson
PART II – THE SACRED
3. Sacred Landscapes: Religion and the Natural
Environment in the Classical World 47
Elena Kingdon
4. Aboriginal Women and Sacred Landscapes in Northern
Australia 63
Veronica Strang
5. The Separation of the Sexes Among Siberian Reindeer
Herders 81
Piers Vitebsky and Sally Wolfe
6. Priestesses and Environment in Zimbabwe 95
Terence Ranger
7. Rice, Women, Men, and the Natural Environment among
the Kelabit of Sarawak 107
Monica Janowski
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Contents
PART III – THE GREAT RELIGIONS
8. Ecology and Christian Hierarchy 121
Anne Primavesi
9. Text and Practice: Women and Nature in Islam 141
Tahera Aftab
10. Soil as the Goddess Bhudevi in a Tamil Hindu
Women’s Ritual: The Kolam in India 159
Vijaya Rettakudi Nagarajan
11. Nature and Gender in Theravada Buddhism 175
Sandra Bell
12. Nature, Holism and Ecofeminism: A Chinese Worldview 195
Stewart McFarlane
PART IV – NEW TRENDS
13. Children of the Gods: The Quest for Wholeness in
Contemporary Paganism 219
Amy Simes
Select Bibliography 239
Index 251
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Preface
This volume is the result of a two-day international workshop
organized by the editors at the Centre for Cross-Cultural
Research on Women at Queen Elizabeth House, University of
Oxford, in June 1996.
The book explores connections between spirituality and the envi-
ronment, and the role of women within this context. The choice of
the title is a response to the new feminist movements which link
women with spirituality and the sacred, and which are having an
increasing influence on environmental thinking and planning. It is
also in tune with the rapidly growing interest over the past three
decades in environmental issues on a global scale (Brundtland
Report, 1987), women’s issues (UN Decade of Women) and the
emphasis being placed on the importance of the role played by
women in the use and protection of natural resources. Literature on
women and their relationship with the environment is abundant,
and this has been analysed from different perspectives in various dis-
ciplines by specialists from the developed and developing world. The
convenors therefore set the premise of the workshop at a different
level, namely to explore some of the major spiritual, religious and
philosophical views and beliefs concerning women and the environ-
ment. The participants questioned how these belief systems affect
behaviour, and whether they can be put to use to create an awareness
among people of the need to protect, preserve and enhance the envi-
ronment. Central to the discussion was the consideration of how
women are viewed in various spiritual and religious ideologies in
relation to the environment and the community, and whether in real-
ity they occupy the place accorded to them by post-modernist think-
ing, as well as by many policy-makers and planners. The contributors
aimed to explore whether women were ‘innately’ connected to nature
because of their responsibility in the daily management of natural
resources, and whether women manage and exploit the environment
more sensitively than men. We also set out to assess whether any
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Preface
practical lessons can be learnt from these ideologies which could be
incorporated in the education of their adherents in approaches to
environmental conservation. The idea of a spiritual link and sense of
sacredness needs to be tested against the everyday realities of life.
The workshop brought together thirteen speakers from different
disciplines including social anthropologists, historians, theolo-
gians, and academics in the field of development studies. The
papers were wide-ranging, stretching in time from ancient Greece
to the present, and in space across many regions of the world. The
contributors approached the issues from the point of view of their
own discipline, each retaining the three major themes of spiritual-
ity/sacredness, environment and women, whilst searching for the
practical dimension of issues at the heart of the debate. We are
aware that this volume is by no means comprehensive as far as all
major religions are concerned.
The book is divided into four sections. The first part provides an
overview and background to the subject and a critique of ‘ecofem-
inism’. In Part II, five chapters are case studies of what one might
term ‘The Sacred’. This group includes the classical world as well as
contemporary ‘traditional’ societies. The classical world’s influence
on western civilization and Christianity is widely recognized. The
third section on the Great Religions begins with Christianity and is
followed by Islam – both religions of ‘the Book’. The last three chap-
ters in this part cover great Eastern religions/philosophies: Hin-
duism, Theravada Buddhism and the Chinese worldview. The latter
considers the attraction of Chinese tradition in the West and the
concept of holism. The final chapter on Modern Paganism also
addresses the concept of ‘wholeness’ and it reflects some of the new
trends in environmental thinking and philosophies.
The workshop was generously sponsored by the Environment
Policy Division of the Department for International Development
(DFID). The Commonwealth Foundation also made a contribution.
The editors wish to thank both donors. We would like to acknowl-
edge Sarah White’s invaluable contribution to the workshop as the
rapporteur. The introduction draws widely on her report which
was prepared for DFID. We are indebted to Brenda Thornton,
Camillia Fawzi El-Solh and Jane Khatib-Chahidi for their advice
and comments. Orbis books kindly granted permission to quote
from H. Assmann. We are also grateful to those specialists who
chaired the workshop sessions, made a valuable contribution to
discussions, and subsequently commented on the papers.
Alaine Low and Soraya Tremayne
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Contributors
Tahera Aftab is editor of the Pakistan Journal of Women’s Studies
and Director of Women’s Studies at the University of Karachi,
where she is Professor of History. She is currently teaching in the
Department of Religion at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania. Her
research interest is in Islam, women and environment.
Sandra Bell is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of
Durham. She has worked on the development of Buddhism in
Britain and America and is co-editor of The Anthropology of Friend-
ship: Community Beyond Kinship and the forthcoming volume
Celibacy, Culture and Society: The Anthropology of Celibacy.
Cecile Jacksonis Dean of the School of Development Studies, Uni-
versity of East Anglia. Her research interests centre on gender and
environmental change. She has worked in Nigeria, Zimbabwe and
India, and held an ESRC Global Environmental Change Fellowship
for conceptual work on gender and environment in developing
countries. She is joint-editor of Feminist Visions of Development:
Gender Analysis and Policy.
Monica Janowski is Lecturer at the Natural Resources Institute,
University of Greenwich. She has published on the Kelabit of
Sarawak, is currently co-editing a book on Food and Kinship in
South-East Asia, and is completing an Occasional Paper: Mining
the Forest: A Material Ethnography of the Kelabit of Sarawak.
Elena Kingdon has an MSc. in Social Anthropology from the
London School of Economics. She is an independent researcher
with experience in East Africa. Her main interests are in anthro-
pology, religion, and conservation. Her publications include
Caught Between the Two Worlds: Moral Problems Relating to Con-
servation in South West Uganda.
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