The Trumpeter - Journal of Ecosophy (Athabasca University)
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Towards an Indigenous Hydropoetics: Human-River Interdependencies in Aboriginal Australian Poetry
No full textThis article delineates the idea of an Indigenous hydropoetics as an ancestral outlook on rivers grounded in Aboriginal cultural traditions of, and everyday interactions with, rivers. In particular, two features—embodiment and relationality—prove integral to conceptualising Indigenous hydropoetics in response to the hydrological precarities of the present. Recognising rivers' capacity for agency, the idea is developed in relation to contemporary Aboriginal Australian poetry narrating long-standing human interdependencies with rivers. The hydropoetic verse of Jack Davis, Samuel Wagan Watson, and Jeanine Leane reveals embodied relations to—and relational epistemologies of—rivers and their habitats through a focus on Derbal Yerrigan (the Swan River) of Western Australia, Marrambidya Bila (the Murrumbidgee River) of New South Wales, and Maiwar (the Brisbane River) of Queensland, respectively. Their writing integrates Dreaming narratives and elicits river poiesis, while also confronting aquatic conservation urgencies in Australia. Evoking sacred rivers whose origins lie in the Dreaming, their work also presents a medium for reverent listening to the fluvial world. While Leane’s hydropoetics centres on the mediating role of memory—hers and the river’s—Watson’s poetry calls attention to fractured river ecologies in Brisbane's urban environment . For Davis, bodily relationality between humans, plants, and rivers presents a potent means of ecopolitical resistance through multispecies solidarity. Immersed in Aboriginal creation narratives, an Indigenous hydropoetics foregrounds the multidimensional intersections between humans, rivers, and all life, thus energising new imaginings of rivers and encouraging receptivity to their biocultural complexities
Becoming Home: Revisiting Arne Naess toward an Ecophilosophy and a Depth Ecology for the 22nd Century
No full textThis article is set in the context of a worsening ecological crisis, which is interpreted as an existential life crisis. The ecocrisis is not just about nature, but also a crisis of culture, community, and self. The prefix “eco” is interpreted in as “home in life”. To solve the crisis, we need a balanced focus on ecophilia and ecojustice. It is not enough to care, to solve the crisis we need to address issues of justice. Naess said he was optimistic on behalf of the 22nd century, but how bad it gets before it gets better depends on what we do today. In the article, I will revisit the life and works of Naess to explore what may inspire a sustainable and eco-friendly future. It will show there is a need to put “philo” back into ecosophy and to go deeper into the depths of deep ecology in a depth ecology movement. It will also address some issues, such as that of eco-animism and a renewed sense of the sacred
Engaging with Nature in Times of Rapid Environmental Change: Vulnerability, Sentience, and Autonomy
No full textIncreasingly rapid environmental changes since the middle of the 20th century pose a significant challenge for vulnerable human populations. North American Native people from the Northwest Coast, as many other indigenous populations around the globe, have conceived landscapes as sentient, and capable of responding to human action. The consequent “social responsibility” taken for landscape is explored in the context of vulnerability to rapid environmental change. The basis for respect that underlies this sense of responsibility, and its significance for addressing human vulnerability to nature’s agency, through more adequate practices of mitigation and adaptation, is discussed. It is concluded that we face an imperative to reconceive the agency of natural phenomena.
Guerrilla Gardening in a Time of Ecological and Social Crisis: An Exploratory Endeavour to Feel Connected with a Lost Piece of Forest
No full textThis four-year explorative study is located in a nearby forest, or more accurately a clearcut, in the western part of Sweden. The objective is to contribute to existing knowledge about forest gardening by exploring a forest milieu without trees in the Northern Hemisphere where the conditions are poor. The aim is to support biodiversity in the short term and to find out whether we could cultivate root vegetables, potatoes, and summer flowers in this nutrient-poor and shadowless environment. The study has an eco-philosophical approach that promotes eco-pedagogy and environmental education and a pragmatic pedagogical approach that adopts a "learning-by-doing" belief. The exploration is underpinned by collaborative autoethnography, and the research is conducted in and through practice. The findings show that a planting project in a clearcut requires a lot of preparation and planning and that it is possible to use a clearcut to grow potatoes, peas, and some summer flowers without special efforts, but hard to grow other crops such as vegetables and root vegetables. The project implies that the planting activities in a clearcut may have a deep impact on people’s sense of human-nature identity and respect for the natural environment
