[Ecotheology 10.

2 (2005) 254-272] Ecotheology (print) ISSN 1363-7320

Ecotheology (online) ISSN 1743-1689

Book Reviews

Marius de Geus, Ecological Utopias: Envisioning the Sustainable Society (Utrecht: Inter-
national Books, 1999). Paperback £12.50, ISBN 9-0572-7019-6.

The background to de Geus’s book is neatly summarized in his opening quotation

from Andrew Dobson: ‘…the utopian vision provides the indispensable funda-
mentalist well of inspiration from which green activists, even the most reformist and
respectable, need continually to draw’. As a project, Marius de Geus’s attempt to
explore the legacy of the utopian vision is to be applauded. In its execution however,
it reveals some fundamental shortcomings, which raise further issues about the nature
of the relationship between green politics and the utopia tradition.
The first issue concerns definition of just what constitutes a utopia. Unfortunately,
de Geus simply defines the utopian tradition in such a broad fashion as to be able to
include any ‘detailed model of a society without the shortcomings and disadvantages
of the current political system’ (p. 19). He qualifies this by suggesting that utopias
have ‘a ficticious character’ and ‘at least in words, contain the ‘blueprints’ for a
completely new state’ (p. 19). This breadth enables him to include the writings of both
Peter Kropotkin and Murray Bookchin, both anarchist theorists, but neither of whom
wrote conventional utopias, more conventionally defined (in the British tradition at
least) as being narrative fictions depicting the good society (Kumar 1991).
He proceeds further to make a characterization of the utopian tradition as separable
between ‘ “ecological utopias” or “utopias of sufficiency…and “technological utopias”
or “utopias of abundance”… The basic difference between these lies in the notion of
whether an ideal society should enjoy material abundance and luxury or be based on
satisfaction and sufficiency’ (p. 21). Whilst such a distinction can be clearly made, by
rejecting out of hand those that do not fit this somewhat arbitrary severance point, de
Geus misses the often complex interplay that is evident within the tradition of utopian
writing. Although this may seem a minor point, it is of immense importance in under-
standing late nineteenth-century socialist politics, which he dwells on at length.
His stated intention is to reveal this neglected stream of political thought in its
relevance to contemporary debates on the sustainable society and to green politics
more generally. He is particularly anxious to defend the utopia against its rejection
‘by post modern political thinkers…and neo-liberals’ (p. 23). In consequence, one can
trace a thoroughly modernist concern and approach throughout the book. Having
dropped the distinction between the narrative of the literary utopia and philosophical
speculations upon the ideal society, he is unable to see beyond the organizational
concerns of this speculation. The literary utopia is merely an utilitarian means to an
end, its author writing ‘as if ’ an artist. But can we realistically make such a mechanis-
tic separation? Is fiction no more than a mechanistic device to render political
planning into a more popular and palatable medium?

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 Book Reviews 255

This reductionist approach to the utopian tradition serves both fiction and politics
badly. Indeed, it is at this juncture between text and reality that contemporary political
theorists attempting to escape the cage of modernist theory are arguing for the
reclaiming of the utopia as a vital part of the re-enchantment of political vision. For
example, Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls for a radical change in the manner we
interpret social development in ways sympathetic to de Geus and to any radical
Green: ‘We must therefore, reinvent the future by opening up a new horizon of possi-
bilities mapped out by new radical alternatives. Merely to criticize the dominant
system, though crucial, is not enough’ (Santos 1995: 479). But the really crucial differ-
ence is how Santos depicts utopia ‘By utopia I mean the exploration of imagination of
new mode of human possibility and styles of will, and the confrontation by imagina-
tion of the necessity of whatever exists—just because it exists—on behalf of something
radically better that is worth fighting for, and to which humanity is fully entitled’
(Santos 1995: 479).
We have here a very different image of utopia from the modernist ‘alternative-
organisation model’ plan of society that de Geus offers us. His understanding of
utopia is that it is ‘a detailed model of a society without the shortcomings and dis-
advantages of the present Political System’ (p.19). Yet this is a view that leaves little
room for the prophetic voice, not as one who depicts an ideal or even idealized future,
but one who reveals the present. In contrast to de Geus’s depiction of utopias as
organisational blueprints, utopian writing as engaging narrative fiction at it strongest
acts as secular prophesy, ‘an expression of transcendence, in the same way as religion’
(Simecka 1984: 172).
Santos again: ‘On the one hand, it [utopia] calls attention to what does not exist as
being the integral, if silenced (counter) part of what does exist… On the other hand,
utopia is always unequally utopian, in that its way of imagining the new is partly
comprised of new combinations and scales of what exists, indeed almost always mere
obscure little details of what does exist. …utopia is as much possessed of Zeitgeist as
of Weltschmertz’ (Santos 1995: 480). This being so, and de Geus acknowledges that
‘utopian actually always hold up a mirror to their contemporaries’ (p. 31), it is surpris-
ing to see how thoroughly decontextualized his accounts of the historical examples
are. Turning to the specific content of the book, he proceeds by introducing reasons
why utopias have been both applauded and mistrusted throughout western political
history, and goes on to sketch overviews of specific examples. Thus we have More
and Thoreau providing ‘Classical Utopias of Sufficiency’, Peter Kropotkin and
William Morris as ‘Anarchist Ecological Utopias’, and Ebenezer Howard (Garden City
movement), B.F. Skinner and Aldous Huxley group under the heading of ‘More
Recent Sketches of Ecological Utopias’ and Ernest Callenbach and Murray Bookchin
as ‘Modern’ proponents.
Even this admittedly select list is problematic. Callenbach and Bookchin are both
contemporary writers who would uncontestably be on any list of Green writers. But
their pairing elides the very real oppositions between them. Similarly, the presump-
tions of the ascription of ecological utopia to Skinner’s Walden Two and Huxley’s
Island miss the way in which Skinner was himself replying to Huxley’s earlier novel
Brave New World. More seriously, the exclusion of any relations to the wider political
(as well as literary utopian) context means that the important links between Thoreau,
Morris, Kropotkin and Howard are missed.

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These can be better depicted if we consider radical activity in England in the period
from c. 1880–c.1900. Peter Gould has previously made a very strong case for this being
read as an important precursor of Green politics, sharing many characteristics with
contemporary discussions (Gould 1988; see also Wall 1994: 8-10). This being so, we
can see Thoreau as an important influence on a wide range of social and political
activity that expressed a renewed interest in the spiritual and non-material dimen-
sions of life, search for a better less-exploitative relationship with both each other and
with the land. Out of the wide variety of approaches, some which have entered into
political tradition, others long forgotten, we can see an entire dialogue of community-
based solutions, anarchist and non-statist socialism amongst which are found the
writings of Morris, Kropotkin and Howard.
However, by distinguishing between two forms of utopian writing on the basis of
their advocacy of sufficiency or technological advance, de Geus prevents us from
seeing the ambiguity of the utopian contribution to Green thought. Whilst offering
social critique and unleashing the creative possibilities inherent in the political imagi-
nation, utopian thought understood as a blueprint always runs the risk of being re-
interpreted as totalitarian. De Geus is scathing of Bellamy’s Looking Backward which he
contrasts with News From Nowhere and Howard’s Garden Cities of Tomorrow. Yet at the
time, Looking Backward was seen as a liberal text, Howard paying for the first publica-
tion in England out of his own pocket, such was his enthusiasm. If we are to look to
historical precedent for inspiration, we must see more than selective fragments.
In that sense, by treating the selected texts as isolated documents and plans, de
Geus seems to miss the key points made by the original authors of some of his exam-
ples. Returning to Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of Tomorrow is not a conventional
fictional utopia—it exists as an idealization and extrapolation of what was always
intended as a practical project, the construction of a new urban-rural interface as ‘a
huge experiment where minor experiments could be carried out’ (Armytage 1961: 374).
As a reality, it led to the construction of Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City, and
more significantly to Town Planning as a recognized and legitimate activity of gov-
ernance in the UK. (Previous expressions had always been private sector events.) De
Geus further perpetuates the error that Howard had not formerly been involved in
political thought and activity and that Garden Cities of Tomorrow was his first foray into
activity. In fact, Howard had published Commonsense Socialism in 1892 and had been
holding public meetings to promote his vision for new land colony as an expression of
this from 1893 (see Beevers 1988; Hall and Ward 1998).
De Geus proposes an understanding of utopias as a genre of political writing that
forms a coherent pattern simply through its common use of a literary genre. His selec-
tions from this tradition are made on the basis that one can make a fundamental
distinction between utopias that propose a (more or less) specific plan and those that
are simply literary explorations of social or ecological problems. Why not then include
General William Booth’s Darkest England and the Way out (1894) which fits the criteria
of a planned sustainable social future perfectly? From one perspective, this already
creates a problem in the antithetical juxtapositions of technological advancement and
concepts of efficiency. Where might a contemporary feminist, arguably acutely ecol-
ogically-aware, utopia such as Marge Piercy’s Woman On The Edge Of Time (1976) fit
into this schema? It posits both a technologically advanced civilization and pone that
simultaneously lives with the need for material satisfaction within the limits of growth.
Is de Guess suggesting that some form of primitivist tendency is the only possible

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 Book Reviews 257

form of sustainability? Certainly Murray Bookchin, included here alongside Ernest

Callenbach (of whom Bookchin is, in fact, bitterly critical), would vehemently disagree.
Other than the retrospective ‘reading-in’ of the considerations of productivity is there
any coherence to this grouping of texts? For this reviewer, this unproven assumption
certainly provides a crucial problem. It is a legitimate question to ask by what criteria
exactly do these examples form an historical tradition, other than that they share a
common literary form.
The stated reason behind his study is ‘to obtain a better insight into the conditions
for and consequences of sustainable development, and to trace otherwise neglected
perspectives and ‘imaginable’ solutions’ (p. 23), in light of the rejection of. Yet despite
advocating the appropriate role of utopia as a ‘navigational Compass’ (Chapter 13), de
Geus concentrates on the material content of each of his examples, with little reference
to the context from which it arises and even less to the interface between the reader
and the text.
There are some important issues to consider in understanding the historical antece-
dents of the Green movement, and utopian writing is undoubtedly vital in the role of
the exploration of possibility for political, social and religious imagination. These are
key areas that need to be investigated. Whilst highlighting some of the important
texts, which may form part of this heritage, de Gues’s work is somewhat limited in its
interpretative framework.
Peter Cox
University of Chester
Parkgate Road
Chester CH1 4BJ
peter.cox@chester.ac.uk

References

Armytage, W.H.G.
1961 Heavens Below: Utopian Experiments in England, 1560–1960.
Beevers, Robert
1988 The Garden City Utopia: A Critical Biography of Ebenezer Howard (Lon-
don: Macmillan).
Gould, Peter C.
1988 Early Green Politics 1880–1900 (London: Harvester).
Hall, Peter, and Colin Ward
1998 Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard (London: J. Wiley).
Krishan, Kumar
1991 Utopianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa
1995 Towards a New Common Sense: Law, Science and Politics in the Paradig-
matic Transition (London: Routledge).
Simecka, Milan
1984 A World With Utopias or Without Them? In Alexander, Peter & Gil Roger
Utopias (London: Duckworth).

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258 Ecotheology

Wall, Derek
1994 Green History: A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy and
Politics (London: Routledge).

Sigurd Bergmann, God in Context: A Survey of Contextual Theology (Aldershot and

Burlinton, VT: Ashgate, 2003), pp. xvi + 155. Illustrated. £59.95, ISBN 0-7546-0615-5.

When the point began to be made in the 1970s that all theological reflection occurs in,
and in some senses arises from, a particular context, the shock waves were almost
tangible. Yet, while western, rationalistic and probably male-dominated theology still
dominates the field prima facie (as claimed by Mary Grey in the foreword to this book,
p.ix), the point has long since been won that it too is the product of a particular
context. Indeed, it has become something of a cliché to maintain that all theology is
contextual. Disagreement remains, however, over the extent of the influence of
context. For some, there is nothing but specific praxis in particular locations in space
and time. Context is all. For others, there remains the quasi-Kierkegaardian qualifica-
tion that while all theology arises out of context, it is never merely contextual if it is
truly theology. One of the virtues of Sigurd Bergmann’s book is that while he concen-
trates on theology which is ‘conscious of its circumstances’ (which is virtually his
definition of ‘contextual’, see p. 15 and Chapter one), there is a discernible sense that
the context-bound theologian is dealing with realities that have a significance beyond
the local. For theology, Bergmann maintains, concerns the ‘ongoing incarnation of
God’ where the universal gospel meets the specific situation (p. 3) resulting in a
revelation that is continuous and thus begs to be explored.
The book is precisely what the title suggests: a survey of contextual theology. Its
focus is methodological and thus it concentrates on certain insights common to the
contextual theologies of the mid-to-late twentieth century, including those of libera-
tion theology, feminist theology, black theology (African and American), ecotheology,
Minjung theology, Palestinian theology and what have become known as ‘kairos
processes’ which make the theological point that particular points in history make
special demands on us, usually to stand with those who, through systemic oppres-
sion, are reduced to silence. Although it is not, then, a book about a theology conceived
within a particular context, for its concern lies with the whole world, a degree of con-
textualism can be apprehended partly through the exploration of the work of the late
Swedish theologian Per Frostin (little known beyond his homeland) and, secondly, by
an examination of art and architecture from four specific contexts.
Six chapters develop specific themes. The first, as is appropriate, defines ‘contextual
theology’; the second offers a survey of the dimensions of context (specifically related
to our understanding of ideology, the world, urbanization, space as profane and
sacred) and of the contribution made by various contextual theologies in recent
history; Chapter three outlines the concept of tradition in order to correlate the
interpretation of the past with the needs of the present; a plea for ‘a theological shift of
paradigm’ is made in Chapter four, interpreting the task of theology as ‘not the
interpretation of “God in general” but the interpretation of “God in function” and
“God here today for us” ’ (cf. p. xv); Chapter five engages with Stephen Bevans’s five
models of contextual theology while the final chapter engages with art and design.

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 Book Reviews 259

Each chapter ends with a helpful summary of the major points raised in the preceding
discussion.
The most constructive parts of the book are those which argue for a human ecologi-
cal model to be included amongst the models of contextual theology (chapter five),
and the descriptive parts of Chapter six which look at three paintings, one by a
German, one by an Australian aborigine, one from a Norwegian Sami artist, and one
Japanese architect’s production of a ‘church space’ in the Hokkaido mountains. Berg-
mann is clearly keen to recover the aesthetic dimension in theology. However, while
this takes theology beyond the usual confines of the written or spoken word to
consider art, nature, place and landscape, the reader may feel that the point is lost for,
despite the inclusion of helpful (black and white) photographs of the subjects under
discussion, we remain dependent on the written descriptions. Nevertheless, they
remind us that our theology is conceived in contexts where image and space are
important and should receive due consideration even if they will ultimately be
considered in prose.
Readers of this Journal will probably be most interested in the comments on
ecotheology. Bergmann briefly surveys this and ecofeminism in Chapter two and
makes the case for an ecological model for contextual theology in Chapter six. How-
ever, as he concentrates on methodology he in fact offers little to the ecological debate
per se, save to insist that it ought always be a consideration in any contextual theology.
This is one of the ironies of the book. While it surveys contextual theology, its interest
is in methodology presumably because a methodology may be employed in different
contexts. It could be, then, that methodology belongs not to the contextual but to the
generalized or universal. But why cannot methodology, too, arise out of context? Is it
appropriate to search for a methodology in contextual theology? Or should we be
content with different methodologies appropriate to different contexts?
The book takes for granted God’s active liberation of the creation in all its forms.
For the author, theology in all its forms exists as ‘part of a salvation drama of the
others and the whole in God’s struggle against evil and for life’ (p. xv). The thrust of
the book is basically positive and hopeful, and this is, of course, quite appropriate.
Nevertheless, the reader might be left wondering whether some kind of assessment
(or even mention) of sin might have been helpful. After all, many live in contexts
where their own sin or that of other people is all too evident and shockingly influen-
tial. Such a discussion may also have added something to the argument for ecotheol-
ogy. Furthermore, some justification of the author’s stance on incarnation would have
been welcomed. Much of this work would fall into the category of natural theology.
Those persuaded that theology is concerned with God’s specific revelation in Christ
would wish to know what the connection is between the incarnation in Jesus of
Nazareth and what appears more appropriately to be a plea for immanence expressed
in the sacredness of place and human creativity. This is not to deny that there is a
connection, merely to suggest that the connection ought not be assumed. It is provoca-
tive, but insufficient, to insist that contextual theology is ‘incarnation theology about
the Son’ and ‘inhabitation theology about the Spirit’ (p. 17). Is all creativity and all
space the result of this inhabitation? As its focus is on method and on underlying
themes, a more rigorously defined pneumatology may have strengthened the book’s
thesis. Even so, it remains unclear as to how that would relate to incarnation.
It may appear churlish to say so, but the book suffers from a number of infelicities
of expression due, no doubt, to the difficulties of translation. This perhaps is under-

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standable: but it still affects the reading of the text. (For example, there is an inordi-
nate use of the definite article, a tendency to translate technical terms and well-known
epigrams literally, such as Marshall MacLuhan’s ‘the medium is the message’; and
occasionally there is an odd choice of word, such as references to the suppressed
rather than the oppressed and a use of ‘manifold’ which is difficult to understand.)
Nevertheless, this remains an interesting and, at times, stimulating book. The reader
will be left informed, but perhaps more importantly challenged to consider God’s
‘ongoing incarnation’ and thus to facilitate further explorations of God in context.

Robert Pope
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Wales
Bangor
Gwynedd, UK
LL57 2DG

Maria Jansdotter, Ekofeminism i teologin—genusuppfattning, natursyn och gudsuppfattning

hos Anne Primavesi, Catherine Keller och Carol Christ (Karlstad, Sweden: Universitet-
stryckeriet, 2003), pp. 187. Paperback £20.00, ISBN 91850-1930-5.

In 2003 Maria Jansdotter defended her doctoral thesis Ecofeminism in Theology,

‘Views of Gender, Nature, and God in the Theologies of Anne Primavesi, Catherine
Keller, and Carol Christ’.
Maria Jansdotter is a researcher in gender studies and theology at Karlstad Univer-
sity, Sweden. Jansdotter introduces major ecofeminist theology in the Northern
academic context in which ecofeminism is not a prioritized field of research. This
makes Ecofeminism in Theology—Thinking at the Crossroads in Ecofeminist Theology, Jans-
dotter’s first major academic work, quite unique.
Ecofeminism in theology is a systematic comparative and critical/constructive
ecotheological study. The book consists of three parts. In the first part Jansdotter clari-
fies the background, material, aims, and problems of her thesis. In the second part she
conducts a descriptive analysis of Anne Primavesi’s, Catherine Keller’s, and Carol
Christ’s theologies. Then in the third part she summarizes their positions and conducts
a critical and constructive analysis based on the results of her descriptive analysis.
Jansdotter takes her departure from the idea that views of gender, nature, and God
interplay in ecofeminist theology. This calls for what Jansdotter labels a three-dimen-
sional analysis according to which she sees the development of views of gender,
nature, and God as the synthesized result of interplay between a person’s conceptual
frameworks, worldview, and social context, and, therefore ought to be analyzed with
these aspects in mind. Accordingly, the main purpose of Ecofeminism in Theology is to
clarify internal tensions and congruencies in the ecofeminist theologies of Primavesi,
Keller, and Christ. In order to fulfill this purpose Jansdotter clarifies their standpoints
on each category and compares their positions from the viewpoint of their theoretical
standpoints, worldviews and social contexts. Finally, on the basis of this analysis she
suggests some further problem areas for ecofeminist theological research.
According to Jansdotter’s analysis ecofeminist theology is heterogenic because Pri-
mavesi, Keller, and Christ have different views on nature, gender, and the Goddess.

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Jansdotter claims that the categories of gender, nature, and God are tied together in
powerful ways using certain key elements in their theologies. For instance ecocentric
interdependence is important to Primavesi, the idea of exploitation of nature and
women rooted in hierarchical social relationships are important to Keller, and the
Goddess and subjective experiences of being integrated with nature is important to
Christ.
Furthermore, Jansdotter highlights the fact that ecofeminists need to be critical
towards views on gender, nature, and God that are based on ‘feminine principles’ or
‘female experiences’. In doing this, she takes sides with other important ecofeminists
such as the philosophers Victoria Davion and Chris Cuomo.
Finally, Jansdotter suggests that Primavesi, Keller, and Christ ought to develop
their analyses of certain unanswered questions. I will here mention some of these
questions. The first concerns the significance of nature in the process of gender con-
stitution. Jansdotter claims that more work needs to be done on the relationship
between physical experiences of nature and language in the process of gender consti-
tution. This analysis should not stereotype or conserve our views on gender. She also
welcomes ecofeminist research on how men experience their bodies and the process of
male gender constitution. Second, she acknowledges that the theologies of Primavesi,
Keller, and Christ highlight ecological interdependence and a human responsibility to
manage nature. Because of this they run the risk of viewing God as merely a force of
life, which, could undermine the ethical imperative of God in theology. Furthermore,
she welcomes a more thorough analysis of the twin dominations of women and
nature. Jansdotter would also like to see a deeper analysis of the concept of value in
ecofeminist theology. The reason for this, she claims is that such an analysis would
illuminate the view of ecofeminist theology regarding the exploitation of nature and
the moral standing of nonhumans. Finally, she welcomes further analysis on the
significance of place for the process of identity formation.
Ecofeminism in Theology is an important contribution to international ecofeminism
and ecofeminist theology. It is theoretically clear and consistent. Jansdotter does what
she sets herself up to do and she manages to keep her problems in focus throughout
the book. Moreover, Jansdotter manages to clarify three important and influential
thinkers in ecofeminist theology. The reader gets a clear-cut view on how ecofeminist
theology can contribute to gender studies, environmental ethics, theology, and reli-
gious studies.
Jansdotter shows that views of gender, nature, and God are constituted in interplay
with conceptual frameworks, worldviews, and experiences of our social and ecologi-
cal contexts, which, in fact is a messy process. And, those messy processes sometimes
need clear-cut theological systematic analyses in order to be understood. Jansdotter’s
doctoral thesis is a splendid example of such analysis and can be recommended to
anyone who is interested in feminism, theology, and environmental and development
issues. The questions that she highlights are highly relevant for environmental ethics
and ecofeminism at large.
Ecofeminism in Theology is quite a short book (187 pages). I would have welcomed
further elaboration of Jansdotter’s own position in the last critical and constructive
part of her thesis. Her own standpoint suggests that she sometimes differs from
mainstream ecofeminist philosophy. Typically, ecofeminists often identify the ‘intrin-
sic value debate’ as outdated and carried out by (male) philosophers that do not take
into consideration conceptions of relationships, care, and embodiment, which often

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are central in ecofeminist ethics. However, Jansdotter suggests that ecofeminist

theology ought to engage further in value analyses. It would also be interesting to
know more about her position regarding the significance of place for the gender
formation process.
Ecofeminism in Theology is an important contribution to the field of environmental-
and development studies and to activism because of its nuanced analysis of ecofem-
inist theology. The fact that Jansdotter highlights ecofeminist theology as heterogenic
and a meeting-place for ecophilosophy, feminism, and religion makes it an academic
counterpoint to the mainstream view on ecofeminism as (merely) a critical radical,
essentialist, and anti-masculine perspective without constructive social and analytic
implications for both men and women.
From my perspective as a teacher in environmental and development studies in a
Northern context, I highly recommend Ecofeminism in Theology to teachers and
researchers in environmental and development studies, theology, and environmental
ethics in which spiritual, feminist, and theological analyses are important and relevant.
Ecofeminism in Theology clarifies the elements of ecofeminist theology as a thinking
at the crossroads. From the perspective of normative environmental ethics, the typical
dichotomy between anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism that constitutes
nonfeminist environmental ethics are meshed in ecofeminist theology, which looks
beyond a confrontative approach on these positions. Jansdotter’s work should be
taken seriously by anyone who has an interest in the relationship between humanity
and nonhumans and the global environment and development crisis that we all, in
different ecosocial contexts, are facing.

David Kronlid
Tegnergatan 25A
SE-75226 Uppsala
Sweden
david.kronlid@teol.uu.se

Graham Harvey (ed.), Readings in Indigenous Religions (London: Continuum, 2002),

pp. 384 Paperback, £25.00. ISBN 0-8264-5101-2.

Readings in Indigenous Religions is intended as a companion volume for Indigenous

Religions, published in 2000, also edited by Graham Harvey. Whereas the latter con-
sists of original commissioned contributions on religious topics, largely by anthro-
pologists and religious studies scholars, the second volume is a Reader, with brief
editorial comments attached to each item. The main readership for this book will be
students of religious studies and anthropology. The format is user-friendly for
teachers looking for articles to illustrate or expand a theme or as a course text in its
own right.
The seventeen chapters are divided into four unequal sections entitled ontology,
performance, knowledge and land. The selection is somewhat eclectic with both
classic and more recent texts, the solid and more ephemeral. The authors, as in the
first volume, consist of anthropologists and religious studies scholars, along with one
or two more difficult to classify. I have used the volume as a source of readings for a
Major’s seminar on Religion and Reason at an American University, and found plenty

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 Book Reviews 263

of material that worked well, and some that left us a little mystified as to its inclusion.
Among the gems that certainly deserve a new and wider audience are the opening
chapter, A. Irving Hallowell’s ‘Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior and World View’, Nurit
Bird-David’s article ‘ “Animism” Revisited: Personhood, Environment and Relational
Epistemology’, Edith Turner’s provocative account of her ‘conversion’ to the world
of spirits when taking part in the Ihamba healing ritual among the Ndembu, ‘A
Visible Spirit Form in Zambia’, and Deborah Bird Rose’s, ‘Sacred Site, Ancestral
Clearing and Environmental Ethics’ in the final section of the book. As with the
majority of the selection, these articles can be approached by students at both under-
graduate and postgraduate level, and provoke a variety of methodological and
theoretical reflections.
The readings are capable of speaking for themselves, but in as much as Harvey
imposes a mood or tone by his selection, ordering and introductions, his message is
that ‘indigenous religions’ deserve to be taken seriously. They continue to be relevant
for many people’s lives, and may be undergoing a revival where they form part of
indigenous rights movements. To this end, ‘A Declaration of the Independence of
New Zealand and the Treaty of Waitangi’ is included. This mixture of academic
reflection and political imperative sits a little uneasily together, in particular with
some of the Australasian material, which is more uneven in type and quality than the
rest of the book. All in all, Harvey has produced a valuable resource that, together
with his other recently edited works in the area of contemporary paganism, shaman-
ism and indigenous religions, draws together a wealth of material in an easily
accessible format.

Fiona Bowie
Senior Lecturer in Anthropology
University of Bristol

Mary Grey, Sacred Longings: Ecofeminist Theology and Globalization (London: SCM Press,
2003), pp. 260. £14.99. ISBN 0-334-02928-7.

Ecofeminism is making its way into theological analysis, bearing fresh images,
critiques and insights. Yet even of those who do bring ecofeminism to theology, few
pick up on either the breadth and depth of ecofeminist analysis, or see the profound
implications for theology. Sacred Longings: Ecofeminist Theology and Globalization does
both. It not only brings ecofeminism further onto the theological scene, it offers rich
insights, deep, and at time scathing critiques, and new directions. The whole book is
an intricate dance around the theme of ‘heart’—meaning quest, vision, desire, life-
energy—and the loss of heart. It deals with despair and hope, hearts of stone and of
flesh, desires and longings, soulfulness and eros, distortions, lies and truth, and, the
recovery of heart. Sacred Longings takes us into the heart of desire, the place where
desire is debilitated or impaired, and where it flourishes. It begs the questions of what
is at the depth of human desire, what we desire, for ourselves and the world, and the
desire for life embedded deep within humanity, indeed the whole earth.
Both the content and the method are novel, thus a synopsis of the book does not do
it justice. I am dividing my comments into these two areas to attempt to illuminate

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parts of the book, knowing that there are caves and passageways that will only be
found by entering into Sacred Longings.
The content. Grey begins the book with stark data and analysis of the negative
consequences of economic globalization. The starting point is political, addressing
what is happening in parts of the world. She moves on to revealing the lived realities
of some women in Rajasthan; their intense poverty, crippled lives, and oppression
from birth to death. Her rendering of their lives is a passionate and compassionate
account of their harsh realities and desire for dignity. Grey has been involved with
these women for several years in a project called Wells for India, and her knowledge
is first-hand. These and other stories of women reveal, without any doubt, that the
economic globalization project is not nourishing their lives, and in most cases is
making a difficult existence much worse.
The next part of the book addresses theology, entered through the door of myth.
The myth of choice is the archetypical portrayal of Psyche and Eros. This story
represents the depth of soul, of desire, and of connection. Grey uses this myth to show
how theology is ‘split at the root’, and is not flourishing. Theology is colluding with a
managerial, consumerism, entrepreneurial culture, and teachers and students alike
are unsure of the aims and desires of theological education. The direction is either
deadly, or simply dead. Grey moves through several chapters on how to root theology
in its heart, and move it forward. Feminist efforts at the recovery of eros and embod-
ied rationality offer critical insights. She explores traditional theological concepts of
kenosis, and how kenosis can engender flourishing. Sacramental poetics are affirmed,
meaning not only the aesthetics of music and art , but their ability to nourish the soul,
to heal the heart and to re-educate desire.
Grey moves in and out of the basic myth of Psyche and Eros, bringing in elements
of classical and contemporary theology, and attempting with words to go deep into
the heart of the nature of theological reflection.
The following section is an extended reflection on spirit; not pneumatology per se,
but close to it. Spirit and the re-education of our longing, is the centering image of the
chapters that deals with God as the voice, spirit, desire and eros of the present
moment. It can be found in ecofeminism, in its enormous challenge to theology as well
as in its inspirational force. Grey then moves into a conversation about ecomysticism
and the rise of consciousness that is occurring in this era of ecological devastation.
The book concludes with a look at Mahatma Gandhi as a teacher and leader of
what Grey has been exploring; a quest for truth, a thirst for justice, a commitment to
non-violence, an awareness of desire, and a mystic. His life can bring to mind ele-
ments hidden or undeveloped in Christian consciousness. The final chapter is on the
recovery of desire, and why desire includes but supercedes ethics. It is desire that will
move, and ultimately heal, the world.
The method. It is challenging to describe what Grey is attempting in this book. I
applaud her efforts to weave story, myth, desire, politics, ecofeminism and theology
together! In every section there is poetic reflection, individual narratives, theological
discussion and political issues. It moves in and out of illustrations, evaluation and
analysis, and from descriptive to prescriptive and back again. One might say that
there is a longing at the heart of the method of this book; a desire to move beyond
logical but soul-less discourses, even beyond meaning and insight, to see and feel life
at its depth. The reader encounters this longing as felt by those who suffer greatly.
Theology should be rooted in this longing, and should mediate both affective and

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effective responses. The reader gets a glimpse that life is a longing for fullness, a holy
quest. And that it is being distorted, disabled, misdirected and desecrated. The only
way out of this quagmire is the recovery of desire, which must be done through re-
awakening, awareness, and at the mythic dimension of life Sacred Longings is trying to
put these realities into words.
My feedback is genuinely divided. The greater response is that I wholeheartedly
agree with the task, and with the need to recover and reclaim this depth of human life
and bring it to consciousness. Grey set for herself a difficult task—which is to put this
into a book. One might say that the book itself aches to represent these dimensions. In
many places the book succeeds. In other places there is simply too much movement
from one kind of discourse and imagery to another, from one subject to another. At
times these movements illuminated the depth Grey wants us to see and feel, and at
other times, for me anyway, they obscured it. Somehow the whole does not always
hold, and yet the overall goal of the book is achieved.
Theologically the book is full of resources, analyses, and tools. The representation
of ecofeminism is sound. The narratives reveal a methodological preference to ‘attend
to the world’; that theology must see and feel the immense suffering of the world and
‘take it to heart’. Justice is required, and yet ethics are insufficient. These messages are
loud and clear, and very much needed to theology to be relevant, authentic and alive.
I commend Grey that she moved outside of the box! How does one write about
desire? How can we hear the music by just learning the notes? We need poetry,
images, stories and analysis. And yet we need most mysticism: a mythic dimension
beyond our ability to articulate it. Sacred Longings is doing all that. It is an unique
book. Grey not only wrote about the need for fresh images, blending narrative with
theoretical discourses, of taking the world seriously, of bringing the unbelievable pain
of women to consciousness, mysticism, as well as offering constructive avenues for
change, she did it. Well, good on you Mary!
Sacred Longings should be read. It could be a college or university text book. It
is an invitation to enter deep realms of the world, of life, and certainly of the
theological quest.

Heather Eaton
St Paul University
Ottawa

Heather Eaton and Lois Ann Lorentzen (eds.), Ecofeminism and Globalisation: Exploring
Culture, Context and Religion (New York/Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), pp. xi +
253. Paperback, £20.95, ISBN 0-7425-2698-4.

This book, jointly edited by Heather Eaton, an ecofeminist theologian, and Lois
Lorentzen, a social ethicist, brings together a number of diverse voices on ecofeminist
theory and practice in the context of economic and globalisation issues. The joint
introduction sets the scene for the reader, namely the criticisms levelled against much
ecofeminism, that it has failed to take into account the varied cultural and religious
voices of those outside the Western world, and failed in particular to grapple with the
concrete political economic contexts in which globalisation arises. The book is a first
step in filling this gap, but it does not disguise the considerable diversity in ecofem-

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inist political and religious approaches to the issues. Common threads centre around
the empirical claim that environmental destruction affects disproportionately more
women, the conceptual claim that women and nature are linked in Western world-
views, and the epistemological claim that an essentialism linking women with nature
needs to be challenged in favour of social construction models.
This book concentrates more on the diversity within this broader consensus, and, in
particular, notes the variety of ways in which globalisation itself can be presented, in
terms of economics, ideology, basis for corporate identity, a global village and as
globalisation from below, expressed as resistance to cultural and economic globalisa-
tion. The editors wish to make the point that the book aims to answer a particular
question, namely, does ecofeminism make sense, and can it be effective in concrete
situations? A particular feature of the book is that it is honest in its answer to this
question, facing squarely those concrete situations where the answer is negative,
rather than positive. I would have welcomed, nonetheless, an epilogue or some other
joint essay which reflected on the variety of the voices and cultures represented, and
gave some indication of where the debate and discussion should go next. Much of the
material presented took the form of review essays, six out of eleven were from
previously published articles dating from 1997. There was little in the way of specific
rationale for the particular essays selected, the greatest concentration of essays under
a very broad title of ‘Regional And Transnational Expressions Of Ecofeminism And
Responses To Globalisation’.
The two essays in the first section on Economic Globalisation, The Environment
And Gender by Mary Mellor, a sociologist, and Heather Eaton, set the scene for the
more concrete case studies that follow. The first essay is a careful sociological analysis
of the diversity within ecofeminism, more specifically that the connection between
women and nature is socially constructed and historically contingent, or that women
have a particular affinity with the natural world based either on cultural or biological
sex differences. The latter view with its more essentialist overtones is particularly
problematic for many ecofeminists. In particular, she raises an important issue that in
those cases where women campaigned for traditional ways of life and subsistence
farming, the patriarchal nature of such practices would be left unchallenged, even
though globalisation and its environmental impacts were the object of the protests.
What unites both affinity and social constructivists is the importance of the awareness
of concrete embodiment, which they believe is lacking in traditional dualist structures.
Heather Eaton draws on liberation theology for her exploration of how theology
might become resistant to the ‘theoretically sophisticated yet anaemic discourse’ that
she finds in much ecofeminist theology. She is also highly critical of the superficial
greening of consumer culture, and asks a difficult question, namely the need for a
‘vision of a viable alternative future’, with an awareness of the importance of particu-
larity. She raises the important question of how far the poststructuralist thought that
has dominated much of the discussion really engages adequately with resisting the
pervasive nature of globalisation as such. She asks how far ecofeminist liberation
theologies can be effective in this context, and this is surely a crucial question of the
book, particularly for those with an interest in theology. Sadly, she only hints at a
possible direction, in terms of providing warnings about dangers inherent in such
discussion, rather than anything more concrete.
The cases that follow could be seen as an answer to her call, though the specific
theological approaches to be followed are treated less than overall religious attitudes

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 Book Reviews 267

and their links or otherwise with the environment. The cases do serve an important
purpose, namely to challenge some of the assumptions that have pervaded ecofem-
inist discourse. Celia Nyamweru’s field work in Kenya, for example, shows clearly
how the stereotypically rendition of women as closer to nature compared with men
cannot be sustained for indigenous tribes that she examined. The sacred forest groves
in particular were important to men, while women were more concerned about the
practicalities of gathering firewood. Lois Lorenntzen, on the other hand, explored
Chiapas, in Mexico, and her work served to challenge the notion that male patriarchy
is specifically linked with the oppression of nature. Of particular interest is the type of
nature associated with men, namely corn, while women are associated with the vege-
table considered less superior, namely potatoes. Nonetheless, women are more likely
to be associated with culture among Chiapas people. Both cases challenge the notion,
sometimes held among ecofeminists, that indigenous peoples are ideal ecologists.
Aruna Gnanadason criticizes the tendency among ecofeminists to ignore the social
class system in India, and argues for a greater need to explore the impact of environ-
mental destruction on dalits and indigenous peoples. She also finds traditional
practices that aim to conserve nature, termed ‘prudence’, among such groups, where
environmental responsibility is woven into the daily life.
The essays in the third section look at a vast diversity of topics, from an engage-
ment with theories about development and its political impacts, to the Buddhist case
studies among new religious groups that have become environmentally active. The
interweaving of ecofeminist discussion into groups such as the united nations is
obviously a contested arena for some ecofeminists. Mary Ress’s discussion of the
emergence of a network among Latin American people and the journal Con-spirando,
shows the importance of local groups working towards finding a particular voice.
Nonetheless, this voice seems to be predominantly about an alternative spirituality,
the suggestion that this might be a form of ‘globalisation from below’ only really
makes sense within the Latin American context, in which case the meaning of ‘glob-
alisation’ is somewhat stretched in this account. Ivone Gebara’s ‘ethics of life’ aimed at
promoting ‘rights to life’ for all life forms is somewhat vague in terms of specific
practice, though it is an attempt to move beyond the narrow reference points that she
sees in much traditional Christianity. Masatsugu Maruyama raises a significant issue
about ecofeminist writing, namely that it says plenty about how humans need to
relate to nature, but little about how men need to relate to women. His challenge is, it
seems to me, not really addressed. He also finds no example of an association of
women and nature in Japanese religion, while some parallels between this religion
and discourses of deconstructive ecofeminism. Greta Gaard’s concluding essay on
ecofeminists in the greens traces the role of ecofeminism within Green politics in the
USA, and shows some of the difficult passages that ecofeminism has faced when
attempts have been made to integrate it into political theory.

Celia Deane-Drummond
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Chester
Parkgate Road
Chester CH2 1EX
c.deane-drummond@chester.ac.uk

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268 Ecotheology

Roger Gottlieb (ed.), This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (New York:
Routledge, 2nd edn, 2004), pp. xvii + 762. Paperback, £26.99, ISBN 04159-4360-4.

There will be few readers of this journal who are not familiar with the first edition of this fine
anthology. Those who are unfamiliar with it, should familiarize themselves with it. It
is an invaluable resource. While a reviewer can always point to texts which might
have been included (as I will), the line has to be drawn somewhere. That said, there
are few anthologies that cover their subject so comprehensively as This Sacred Earth.
As with most anthologies, the selections betray the anthologist’s own philosophy,
which in this case is not difficult to discern. Gottlieb’s helpful ‘Introduction’ to the
volume, his short introductions to each of the sections, and his own articles (which,
although revisiting some of the same ideas, replace his interesting discussion of deep
ecology and the radical left in the first edition) suggest a form of deep nature spiritual-
ity, which can be seen throughout the book, from the Transcendentalist nature
mysticism of Emerson to Thomas Berry’s deep ecology to the accounts of ‘Green
Sisters’ (Sarah Taylor) and ‘Redwood Rabbis’ (Seth Zuckerman) in the final section.
This is not to say that the volume includes only articles which are sympathetic to the
editor’s own environmental philosophy, for it does not. However, if there is a philoso-
phy informing the book (and there is), broadly speaking, it is one which is shaped by
an acute awareness of environmental crisis and a belief that the appropriate response
should be, not only fundamentally spiritual, but consonant with the perspectives
developed within creation spirituality, deep ecology, and ecofeminism.
As with the first edition, the book is divided into seven parts. Part I, ‘Selections
from Nature Writers Linking Nature and Spirit’, includes work from, for example,
Thoreau, Emerson, and Aldo Leopold. Part II, ‘How Have Traditional Religions
Viewed Nature?’ has selections from writers standing within the world’s principal
religious traditions. Commendably, however, Gottlieb has not limited the selections to
the major world religions, but has included some voices from indigenous and alterna-
tive traditions. Part III, ‘Ecotheology in an Age of Environmental Crisis’, begins with
Lynn White’s famous 1967 essay, ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’, and
follows this with selections from a good spread of Christian traditions and theologies
(although, of course, more could have been represented). There are, for example,
contributions from Pope John Paul II, the Evangelical Environmental Network, the
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, John Cobb, Sallie McFague, Andrew Linzey, and
Gottlieb himself.
Staying with ecotheology per se, Part IV focuses on ecofeminist spiritualities and
Part V on deep ecology. Part VI, ‘Religious Practice for the Sacred Earth’, turns specifi-
cally to liturgical ecotheology, to rites and ceremonies which have been designed to
‘help us honour the earth and feel the depth and sacred character of our connection to
it’ (p. 512). Part VII, ‘Ecology, Religion and Society’, consists of several public state-
ments by religious organizations and several applied ecotheological essays that focus
on how eco-spirituality might contribute to environmental politics. Interestingly,
overall, this section demonstrates an admirable circular hermeneutic which seeks to
learn as well as to inform. It shows how religious belief and practice per se is shaped
by political engagement.
There are several important new selections included in the second edition. For
example, since one of the principal areas of concern to emerge since the last edition is
environmental racism, it was good to see the inclusion of ‘Statements by the United
Church of Christ on Environmental Racism in St. Louis’. However, while there are

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 Book Reviews 269

many excellent new additions to the second edition, I was surprised that others had
been removed. For example, the removal of Bron Taylor’s article and the lack of a
replacement means that the anthology now lacks a good analysis of Earth First!
Indeed, while an anthology cannot keep expanding with every new edition (particu-
larly one as large as this), and while there is a need to remove dated material, it is a
shame that writers such as Bron Taylor, Anne Primavesi, John Mbiti, David Kinsley,
and Charlene Spretnak have been dispensed with. These are still important and
influential thinkers, most of whom have produced recent significant contributions to
the area which could have been included. Indeed, I have to say that, on balance,
although a little dated now, I prefer the spread of articles in the first edition. Hence,
although there is obviously a lot of overlap between the two editions, the latter does
not wholly replace the former.
Finally, I was a little surprised not to have seen contemporary Western nature
religions represented more adequately. While there is a nice contribution from the
perspective of Goddess spirituality from Riane Eisler (pp. 449-61), this is nearly twenty
years old, and while there are several selections from the perspectives of indigenous
and creation spiritualities, there is nothing recent from Wiccan, Druidic, Heathen, or
Shamanic traditions. Some writers within these traditions have helpful ideas to con-
tribute and are, indeed, far more influential than some of those selected.
This is, nevertheless, a superb anthology. Although I would encourage readers new
to the work not to ignore the first edition, its successor is a fine volume which, again,
leaves us indebted to Roger Gottlieb.

Christopher Partridge
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Chester
Parkgate Road
Chester, CH2 1EX.
c.partridge@chester.ac.uk

Sarah Jewitt, Environment, Knowledge and Gender: Local Development in India’s Jharkhand
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 348. Hardback, £25.00, ISBN 0-7546-1654-1.

This scholarly study is interesting in its own right, in its detailed research into the
politics and socio-cultural aspects of India’s forest management in Bihar, but far more
significant in its attempt to explode the myth of ecofeminist and populist models of
development, fashionable especially through the writings of Vandana Shiva. It forms
part of an attempt to understand the balance between indigenous agro-ecological
knowledges and scientific knowledge together with modern notions of development.
Jharkhand is India’s newest state, created after a long political struggle on 15
November 2000, from a region in the south of Bihar. The two project villages Ambatoli
and Jamtoli were selected because of their good forest cover, their Adivasi (tribal)
population and their location in a fairly underdeveloped area, as well as their involve-
ment in Jharkhand politics. Ambatoli consists of 76.5 tribal people and most of the rest
are from Scheduled or Backward castes. The nearby village of Jamtoli is similar, but
with a reserved forest (belonging directly to the Crown), meaning that it never was a
tax-paying village under colonialism.

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270 Ecotheology

A considerable research base underpins the study—occasionally impeding the flow

of the text, given the long list of supportive references, which undeniably add power
to its argument. The ecofeminist and populist case (or Women, Environment and
Development Approaches), presented by Shiva and others is that women are the
guardians of the environment, privileged environmental managers, with superior
knowledge of seeds, forest produce and natural processes, owing to their social role as
providers and experts in subsistence production. Women offer a more nurturing view
of nature based on prakriti, or the feminist principle.
Jewitt warns that this risks setting up a dualism (and Shiva certainly intends this!)
between woman/indigenous/community/local and man/western/scientific/state/
global. This is part of Shiva’s opposition between a top-down, western, patriarchally-
based agriculture and an indigenous, grassroots, participatory approach. Here Jewitt
asks poignantly if every grain of local knowledge contains scientific truth, and if every
western idea is inherently harmful? Many of her arguments are persuasive—her
debunking comments on the Chipko movement will certainly distress many readers!
In my opinion she has succeeded in showing that the ecofeminist, populist
approach is romanticized and undifferentiated, largely because other considerations—
like caste, age, seniority in the family, education, local power politics and individual
circumstances have not been factored in. In her research villages, a major factor is that
most married women come from different villages, sometimes from an urban home,
and had to start from a basis of zero knowledge about the forest economy. Secondly,
there was a greater flexibility and sharing between men and women as to who
collected firewood and forest produce. The higher up the caste hierarchy a family
became, the greater the tendency to ‘buy out’ women from irksome chores of fuel
collection. Thirdly, power politics means that women’s role in decision-making on
forest issues is fairly negligible: even their participation in committees tends to be
tokenist, although the book describes some efforts to break this deadlock. More
surprisingly, women’s methods of fuel collection sometimes manifested indifference
towards the health of the trees, even inhibiting fuel regeneration, while men showed
more expertise and responsibility.
Jewitt does not dismiss populist approaches, seeing them important as opening up
the dialogue between indigenous and modern approaches. I found her call for
attention to the sophisticated interplay of gender relations and power politics at a
local level cohered with my experience in rural Rajasthan (although I thought her
arguments on GM too undeveloped to be convincing). Projects are more likely to
succeed in the long run with greater cooperation between villagers, local leaders,
NGOs and local district government. Agnosticism about women’s so-called superior
ecological knowledge makes more urgent her appeal to the need for greater structural
change through more combined initiatives from the state, donors and NGOs, if there
is to be any real alleviation of the burden for India’s rural women.

Mary Grey
Department of Theology
Religious and Islamic Studies
University of Wales
Lampeter
Ceredigion SA48 7ED
E-mail: marygrey@rivertest.fslife.co.uk

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 Book Reviews 271

Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy (trans.
Catherine Porter; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 320 pp. Hard-
back, $55.00/£35.95/€50.70, ISBN 0674-01289-5. Paperback, $24.95/£16.95/€23.10,
ISBN 0674-01347-6.

Since its identification as a stream of inquiry within (or perhaps, ‘between’) History
and Philosophy of Science (HPS), Science and Technology Studies (STS) has tradition-
ally been tarred with the brush of explaining phenomena across the history of ideas
purely according to manifold social factors, more often that not local or context
specific to the phenomenon under investigation. Political struggle, gender, war and
religious belief are all cited to differing degrees as stimuli and influential factors pre-
siding over the genesis of instruments, theories and institutions in science. This
deferral to social explanation or the social construction of knowledge found its way
into more contemporary considerations of scientific praxis, particularly in the exami-
nation of how scientists record, narrate and re-narrate their discoveries and subse-
quent theories. At its blossoming, Bruno Latour was once such social scientist. His
early works followed scientists through social networks as they transported soil
samples from the field to the laboratory; these were followed by historical studies
regarding the love of technology (particularly Parisian escalators) and research with a
genealogical twist asking whether the West’s claims on being Modern (or Postmod-
ern, for that matter) were valid.
The last decade has seen a general alteration in the landscape of the social sciences,
with what has since been labelled as ‘The Material Turn’. In short, this recent phase
represents a move away from a heavy emphasis on social factors and reinstates a
more nuanced approach based on the double heuristic of the irreducibly material
location of sociality and the permanently socialized presentation of the material. It is
hard to discern at the present time whether the end of the priority of the social is
simply another pendulum swing in the oscillation of history between poles of fact and
narrative; however Latour’s most recent text is a suggestive, might one even say,
prophetic, treatise on how the West might avoid the ongoing violence of such a
motion. His is a work that wishes to prepare the ground for a renegotiation of the
relation between the political and the natural: what others have described as ‘Cos-
mopolitics’ (Isabelle Stengers), Latour wishes to call ‘Political Ecology’.
To offer a précis of the structure of this work as part of my review seems slightly
fraudulent, as the author offers a summary of his own argument across five pages and
a rich glossary of terms at the rear of the book (asterisked in the main text itself), prior
to the bibliography and index. Moreover, and additionally uncharacteristic for a work
of French social analysis (one might think), this book goes to great lengths to be
eminently accessible; relying neither on obtuse neologisms or on words left un-
translated into English vernacular. Beyond this peculiarly un-French setting, Latour
proceeds by rearticulating a refinement of his position in previous essays with regard
to the dualism of appearance versus reality through a brief discussion of Plato’s cave.
This theme is then taken up with reference to verbose politics and silent nature, the
resulting conclusions being that nature in itself is not a sphere of reality but rather is a
settlement founded on the result of a political decision to separate the indisputable
from the disputable. In contrast to these exclusionary ‘Power Politics’, Latour places
his own hope in another kind of politics, one that implies the constitution of a
common world through the rhizomatic combination of polis, logos and phusis, rather

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272 Ecotheology

than the vacillation between them. This is an attempt to go beyond dualisms of nature
and society and does so via a critique of Deep Ecology, Gaia and the wide array of
their conceptual successors in the ecological movement. After criticism, Latour’s
constructive steps include an emphasis on the way in which recourse to ‘nature’ and
‘the natural’ are inherently political claims: claims that cling to a kind of foundation-
alism for their endurance and assurance. His is also a move away from the ideology of
‘Science’ and ‘Naturalism’ in favour of a conception of ‘the sciences’ as those socio-
material practices that engage non-humans in specific social networks (a research
community, for example). Within this socialization of the non-human, one also
negates the political legacy of appearance versus reality, of brute matter.
This is Latour’s most complete expression of his vision for a peaceable cosmos,
combining the insights of his participation in the Sokal Affair and the subsequent
‘Science Wars’ with a method focussed on relations rather than pure essences. His
intertwining of politics, narrative and physics is not a structuralist or pre-determined
Parisian edifice. Rather, when encountered, it is complex, manifold, reflexive and
multiplicitous: perhaps best rendered as ambiguous but not ambivalent. Nevertheless,
as poesis and polis it is a vision that requires a response from its audience, and this may
be the key to both Latour’s politico-ecological settlement and theological interaction
that follows: compelling participation, rather than observation at a distance.

R.P. Whaite
Department of Religions and Theology
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
richard.p.whaite@stud.man.ac.uk

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2005.