Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home Africana Periodical Literature Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Muted 'mutji': on secularized self-censorship, virtual environmentalism and spiritual ecologies in Kavango, Namibia
Author:Pröpper, MichaelISNI
Year:2010
Periodical:Journal of Namibian Studies (ISSN 1863-5954)
Issue:8
Pages:49-78
Language:English
Geographic term:Namibia
Subjects:environmental management
cosmology
witchcraft
Abstract:Namibia has an environmental and economic problem with anthropogenic overuse of natural resources. The paradigms of development and conservation, exemplified through the catch-term CBNRM (community-based national resource management), dominate public discourses on how to influence individual and collective behaviour towards sustainability. However, cosmological drivers of action, e.g. witchcraft, are widely missing from these discourses. Based on empirical evidence of the prevalence of cosmologically influenced action in Kavango, as well as of potentially detrimental outcomes for natural resources and social capital, this paper discusses the possibility that a crucial link between spirituality and environmentality is being muted. Models of environmental protection and development are based on prevalent eurocentric ontologies and differing presumptions about the factuality of cosmological convictions. Paradigms of secularity and modernity support self-censorship on epistemological aspects of environmental relations in public debate. As long as this self-censorship continues, a mutual understanding between the different stakeholders and successful sustainable resource management will be restricted. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
Views