RT Article
T1 Planting the Seeds of the Future: Eschatological Environmentalism in the Time of the Anthropocene
JF Religions
VO 10
IS 2
SP 1
OP 14
A1 Bocci, Paolo
LA English
PB MDPI
YR 2019
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1671269063
AB Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this essay examines how the local Jehovah's Witnesses' response to the current ecological crisis on the Galápagos Islands has produced a distinct form of religious environmentalism. Specifically, I argue that the Jehovah's Witnesses' vision of the ultimate future informs action rather than despair-contrary to what is often assumed about millenarian beliefs. This essay joins voices in Christian feminist and eco-theology interested in reclaiming eschatology for its imaginative valence. Yet, unlike invocations for hope that lack consideration of their viability, my ethnographic approach contributes to this literature with a view of the practical reverberations of eschatology. Further, current discussions about ecological unraveling, often couched around the concept of the Anthropocene, have reinforced expert-driven, techno-scientific measures that exclude other forms of knowledge production and practical interventions. If such worries continue to motivate a paradigm of conservation that exclude locals, my essay shows how the local Jehovah's Witnesses promote a valuable alternative form of environmentalism, on the Galápagos and elsewhere.
K1 Ecuador
K1 Conservation
K1 Eco-theology
K1 endemic plants
K1 environmental anthropology
K1 INVASIVE SPECIES
K1 the Anthropocene
K1 the Galápagos Islands
K1 Urbanization
DO 10.3390/rel10020125