Native American environmentalism: Land, spirit and the idea of wilderness

Porter, Joy

Abstract

"In Native American Environmentalism the history of indigenous peoples in North America is brought into dialogue with key environmental terms such as "wilderness" and "nature." The conflict between Christian environmentalist thinking and indigenous views, a conflict intimately linked to the current environmental crisis in the United States, is explored through an analysis of parks and wilderness areas, gardens and gardening, and indigenous approaches to land as expressed in contemporary art, novels, and historical writing. Countering the inclination to associate indigenous peoples with "wilderness" or to conflate everything "Indian" with a vague sense of the ecological, Joy Porter shows how Indian communities were forced to migrate to make way for the nation's "wilderness" parks in the nineteenth century. Among the first American communities to reckon with environmental despoliation, they have fought significant environmental battles and made key adaptations. By linking Native American history to mainstream histories and current debates, Porter advances the important process of shifting debate about climate change away from scientists and literary environmental writers, a project central to tackling environmental crises in the twenty-first century. "-- Provided by publisher.
"A study of traditional Native American approaches to land and spirituality, analyzing how colonization has influenced how we perceive Indian spirituality and Indian relationships to nature"-- Provided by publisher.

Citation

Porter, J. (2014). Native American environmentalism: Land, spirit and the idea of wilderness. Lincoln, Nebraska, USA: Bison books

• Book Type: Monograph
• Publication Date: 2014-04
• Deposit Date: Jun 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780803248359
• Keywords: Enviroment Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/1791821
• Publisher URL: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/bison/9780803248359/
• Related Public URLs: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Dv0oDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Additional Information: Table of Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Approaches to Spirituality, Tradition, Land, Wilderness, Nature, Landscape, and Place; 2. On Middle Way Thinking, Gardening, Parks, and Aspects of Indian Thinking about Land; 3. Spiritual Approaches to Life in America; 4. Literature, Land, and Spirit; 5. Art, Land, and Spirit; 6. Environmental Justice, Place, and Indian "Sacrifice"; 7. Vanishing, Reappearing, and Disappearing Indians on American Soil; 8. Future Directions Into and Out of the Wild; Notes; Bibliography; Index