Suchergebnisse

Contributed seminar papers presented at an international conference on culture matters: understanding development from the perspective of marginal communities, held at New Delhi in October 2006 organized by Deshkal Society, Delhi

Abstract
This essay is an example of a post-materialist science in the work of molecular biologist Candace Pert. Post-materialist science supersedes materialist-reductionist science and integrates spirituality with materiality. This discussion is motivated by the author's experience as an academic in a New England institution. Integral ecology is entangled with post-material science as in the work of cosmologist Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry and Mary-Evelyn Tucker. The last part discusses the author's creation of a non-profit organization in the Peruvian Upper Amazon. The work of her center is a response to requests by the local indigenous leadership for an alternative to their slash and burn form of agriculture. The alternative is the regeneration of a pre-Columbian anthropogenic Amazonian soil known as Terra Preta do Indio (black earth of the Indians) in Brazil, which integrates materiality and spirituality and offers the possibility of food security and sovereignty as well as climate mitigation.

This paper argues that secularism as a concept and practice arose from the need in 16th and 17th century Europe to create a neutral space making possible intra- as well as inter-State discourse. This neutral space was from the beginning part of the emerging scientific revolution; it transposed in a different key the dogmatic unicity of the two warring religious denominations. Secular science created the 'sacred/spiritual' as an other-worldly domain totally separate from this-worldly realms of nature and society. By looking at an important festival in coastal Orissa taking place in a so-called 'sacred grove', the paper argues that the category of sacred thus wielded does violence to a different reality where unicity and the sacred/secular dichotomy, among others, are not found. Rather than essentialist categories, local practice conjures a dynamic, shifting, alternating reality, in which no single principle or reality dominates. The paper argues that unicity is lethal to diversity and that secular nation-states have everywhere adopted science as both a strengthening and legitimising tool, thus endangering diversity. Newly emergent religious 'fundamentalisms' negatively mirror the unicity of the secular nation-state, whereas much of local practice retains its diversity-generating ways of life.

Abstract
This paper explores the cultural context and ecological implications of two menstrual festivals in northeastern India: Rajaparba in Orissa and Ambuvaci in Kamakhya, Assam. We argue that these festivals are extremely fruitful sites to explore questions of women and power in religious communities where the Goddess is a central focus as well as their ecological implications for an integral worldview. These festivals, usually held at the beginning of the monsoon when the Hindu Goddess menstruates, are times when the earth is regenerated, when the body of the Goddess is regenerated, and when women and communities are regenerated in various ways. Participants report that pilgrimages to these festivals are indeed transformative and have positive impacts on their lives. As a result, we critique feminist arguments that claim that Hinduism is the basis for women's social disempowerment, and as a result, the only meaningful social change must occur on a secular basis. We also use these festivals to critique contemporary feminist developmentalist ideologies.