SHAMANISM AND ECO-COSMOLOGY
April 27th and 28th , 2017| Lecture Hall, DESKoi, Panteion | A collaboration between The Laboratory of Anthropological Research and the Social Anthropology department of Panteion University with the Universities Ca'Foscari, (Italy), Cork (Ireland), Heidelberg (Germany) and ISARS (International Society for Academic Research on Shamanism)
This workshop focusses eco-cosmology as a worldview prevalent in shamanic cultures worldwide. Contemporary shamanisms are embedded in analogous ecological knowledge systems relating always to indigenous cosmologies and ontologies (Kopenawa/Albert 2013). Local shamanisms are commonly understood as value systems based on the one hand on cultures of orality, on the other hand on the non-dualistic perspective on human and non-human agencies in a mutually shared world and cosmos (Descola 1992, (2005) 2013, Viveiro de Castro 1998).
Within the process of industrial extraction of natural resources diverse indigenous / analogous communities are deprived of their fundamental human rights for secured livelihood and preserved ecosystems. An industrial neo-colonial intrusion into mineral rich territories of indigenous and analogous peoples takes place worldwide. With the ecological degradation, vulnerable worldviews of indigenous/ analogous communities and their rituals are critically threatened.
These worldviews and local knowledge systems however could be a key for finding local and global solutions for a sustainable and philanthropic global world of cultural and eco-biological diversity and mutuality.
The 2-days workshop discusses from anthropological, environmental and study of religions perspective local eco-cosmological shamanic knowledge systems and worldviews. It aims on the one hand at displaying the threatened local ecological knowledge transmitted by shamans; on the other hand the workshop aims at a valuation and recognition of shamanic eco-cosmological solutions for a sustainable world and cosmos.
Organised & Conceptualised by: Stefano Beggiora (Ca’Foscari University, Venice), Lidia Guzy (Marginalised & Endangered Worldviews Study Centre, University College Cork, Cork), Diana Riboli (ISARS President, Panteion University,), Davide Torri (Heidelberg University, Heidelberg).
