“Animism” Revisited

1999/02/01 by Nurit Bird‐David · 21 citations
Social Sciences · Environmental Science · #Geographies of human-animal interactions #Environmental Philosophy and Ethics #Religion, Ecology, and Ethics

paper · doi:10.1086/200061

Abstract

“Animism” is projected in the literature as simple religion and a failed epistemology, to a large extent because it has hitherto been viewed from modernist perspectives. In this paper previous theories, from classical to recent, are critiqued. An ethnographic example of a hunter‐gatherer people is given to explore how animistic ideas operate within the context of social practices, with attention to local constructions of a relational personhood and to its relationship with ecological perceptions of the environment. A reformulation of their animism as a relational epistemology is offered.

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• Animism [wikipedia]
• Streams as Entanglement of Nature and Culture: European Upper Paleolithic River Systems and Their Role as Features of Spatial Organization. [europepmc]
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