Suchergebnisse

Abstract
In the highlands of Ethiopia, the only remaining stands of native forest are around churches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Though hailed as community-conserved areas by environmentalists, we argue that the conservation of such forest is not intentional, but rather an indirect result of the religious norms, beliefs and practices surrounding the sites. In actuality, the religiosity surrounding church forests maintains the purity of the most holy space in the center of the shrine, the tabot, a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, which ensures that the church is a legitimate and effective portal to the divine. An underlying cultural logic of purity and pollution structures the spatial organization of the site outward into a series of concentric circles of diminishing purity and shapes the social order into an elegant hierarchy. This article seeks to understand the norms, beliefs and practices of this sacred geography in its social and religious context, arguing that ignorance of or inattention to these can undermine the conservation goals that have brought these forests, along with so many other sacred natural sites, to the attention of environmentalists around the world.

Can anthroposophists be considered environmentalists? Based on the author's recent ethnographic research, this article seeks to delineate the profile of the anthroposophical environmentalist, a figure belonging to a particular form of environmentalism. In the last two centuries, anthroposophy (founded by Rudolf Steiner, 1861-1925) has elaborated a universalistic narrative named "spiritual science." Today, through a "salvific approach" and a "karstic life," anthroposophy informs different, blended, environmental practices intertwined with ecological and social issues that include spirituality, anti-modernism, human-nonhuman relationships and alternative sciences. Consequently, the ecological movements inspired by anthroposophy have a wide and increasing diffusion globally and this, in turn, stimulates anthropology to produce appropriate ethnographic knowledge of this form of environmentalism.

This book presents an argument that the environmental movement is a coalition of many groups working toward common objectives without common values. Norton believes this lack of unity causes unnecessary and divisive controversy and debate within the environmentalist community which impedes the development of effective and timely environmental management policies. The various participants in environmental debates see events so differently, and describe them in such diverse vocabularies, that the environmental movement, unlike other social action movements, lacks common theoretical principles. Norton's goal is to create a common language for discussing environmental issues as a first step towards a unified theory of environmental management.

Mark Mills and Rosario Fortugno debate the future of electric vehicles.