Faiths for Earth, Geo-Commoning, and New Ethics in the Himalayas

Dear Colleagues,

An integral part of the earth’s climate system, a multiregional weather-maker, and a more-than-human pluriverse, the Himalayas and the adjacent highlands of Tibet, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia are inhabited by interconnected, diverse nations of humans and communities of animals and plants. In many ways, the Himalayan highlands are a “terrestrial ocean,” as they hold an immense amount of water in solid, liquid, and vaporous states and are the source of fresh water for two billion humans and countless nonhumans in Asia. Since the advent of modern extractive development in both the colonial and postcolonial eras, Himalayan lifeworlds have undergone multiple anthropogenic transformations of land, air, and water as consequences of global industrialization-induced climate change. Parallel to the UN’s intergovernmental initiation of sustainable development in the 1980s, many local societies, empowered by their traditional ecological knowledge, have exercised faith-based environmental solutions favoring a just, sustainable way of living. The organic alliance of spiritual beliefs, modern science, and sustainability found in Highland Asia is a fertile source of interdisciplinary research and public discourse around the world.

This Special Issue, not limited to religious studies, invites contributions from all fields of the sciences and humanities to feature historical and current case studies of the ecological role of religions and spiritual practices in shaping human–nature relations and in forging faith-based environmentalisms in the greater Himalayan region, including the Tibetan Plateau and places that are under-researched in Himalayan studies, such as Laos, Myanmar, Northeast India, and Southwest China. “Faiths,” “ecospirituality,” and science-based spirituality of the earth in this Special Issue broadly include indigenous beliefs and indigenized world religions. Without assuming that all religious, spiritual traditions, and scientific beliefs are eco-friendly, this Special Issue recognizes a panhuman cultural fact that religions and spiritual traditions, situated in different ecological contexts, play various roles in forging human environmental values and worldviews. It, therefore, welcomes manuscripts that address different ecological facets of faith-based, ancient and modern traditions and how they respond to what the guest editors refer to as geo-commoning. The emphasis on geo is meant to point to both human transboundary environmental politics and the earth’s own geological and ecological patterning in the Himalayas, which shapes what modern humans perceive as “resource commons” or simply “natural resources.” In this respect, human commoning is a series of extractive processes that have led to the worldwide tragedy of the commons, manifested as a multifarious anthropogenic crisis. This Special Issue thus compels contributing authors to recognize the earth’s own agency and liveliness in making commons, e.g., rivers and forests, and let the earth speak through their texts in animistic, spiritual, and affective terms, in addition to hosting human-centered political and ethical debates.

The guest editors particularly encourage authors to situate their contributions in the interdisciplinary fields of religion and ecology, and environmental humanities, or to incorporate some of the perspectives and approaches of those interlinked disciplines. Both are currently in the forefront of an engaged environmental studies that interweaves traditional ecological knowledge with growing scientific and public understandings of the earth as a self-regulatory, living planet and which amplify the moral considerability of the earth in global endeavors to build a new environmental ethics in the Anthropocene.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send this to the Guest Editors, Prof. Dan Smyer Yü ([email protected]), Dr. Jelle J.P. Wouters ([email protected]), Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker ([email protected]), and cc the Assistant Editor of Religions, Margaret Liu ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

Tentative completion schedule:

Deadline for abstract submission: July 30, 2024

Deadline for full manuscript submission: February 28, 2025

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Acknowledgments: We're deeply grateful to Elizabeth McAnally for her efforts in posting information about the Special Issue on the Forum on Religion and Ecology's website and newsletter.

Prof. Dr. Dan Smyer Yü
Dr. Jelle J.P. Wouters
Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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• Himalayan–Tibetan highlands
• religious ecology
• spiritual environmentalisms
• commoning
• ethics
• the Anthro-pocene

Title: Lyopu: the Idu Mishmi’s religious ecology and their relations with the Earth

Abstract: The religion of the Idu Mishmi is anchored around the idea that humans co-exist with other beings in the world on the basis of their animistic interrelatedness, which plays a crucial role in sustaining the ecological well-being of land, people, animals, and plants. The shamanically-mediated animist traditions of Idu Mishmi are, therefore, deeply situated in an ecological context of the Himalayas. We put forth the Idu Mishmi’s concept of Lyopu, which signifies a life chain that incorporates humans and nonhumans as well as their ancestral connections with the earth. As a highly complex indigenous idea, Lyopu not only brings together the past, present, and future of human existence, but is also the central force safeguarding and sustaining all forms of life. Embedded in Idu Mishmi’s animist faith, the ecospiritual principle of Lyopu has shaped and reshaped the humans’ multilayered associations of the indigenous environment, animals, forests, rivers, and mountains since ancient times. By positioning the ecological shamanic concept of Lyopu at the core, we argue that the animist belief of Idu Mishmi regards the earth as the commons for both human and nonhuman beings and, therefore, regulates the socio-ecological and the cosmic worlds, pointing to not only how humans perceive their environment but also demonstrating how the earth thinks and feels of its own accord about us humans in particular and the diverse lifeworlds in general. Keywords: Lyopu, religious ecology, animism, commons, shamans, nature.

Title: Sacred Groves, Eco-spirituality and Non-human Territoriality in Northeast India

Abstract: Sacred groves or traditionally managed forest patches have drawn wide attention as a conservation tool. As an ancient and customary practice to regulate human encroachment on and rampant extraction of forest resources, sacred groves are promoted as an indigenous method of conservation. Northeast India has a number of sacred groves. In the Buddhist Monpa areas of Arunachal Pradesh, many sacred groves are attached to monasteries, and designated as Gonpa Forest Areas (GFA). In other parts of this region, sacred groves are maintained as preserves of spirits and deities and to breach these boundaries is to invite the latter’s wrath. Increasingly, however, sacred groves are being promoted as sites of ecotourism. Building on the idea of ethical territoriality discussed by political theorists, made with respect to immigrant rights, which demands rights and recognition for territorially present non-citizens, I argue that sacred groves norms can lead us to a normative view of recognising territorial rights of the non-human other. This goes beyond an essentialised view of sacred forests as indigenous environmentalism or a functional view, as resources during crisis, or an instrumental view, as aids to conservation to be promoted by eco-tourism. Anthropologist Karine Gagne writes about an ‘ethics of care’ that is possible through practical interaction and affective engagement with non-human life. Using insights drawn from sacred groves norms, I argue for a consideration of a territorial ethics or ethical thinking with respect to the territoriality of non-human life, in their expected presence and unexpected co-incidence. This not only involves respecting boundaries and accounting for non-human co-presence in and around human settlements but also preventing the expansion of human residence, development infrastructure, and capitalist enterprises, including ecotourism ventures, into non-human territory.

Title: On shaky ground? Tlawmngaihna and the response to ecological disasters in Mizoram.

Abstract: Ecological disasters, whether floods, landslides, or even famines caused by the flowering of a particular species of the bamboo, are not new to the tiny state of Mizoram in Northeast India. The magnitude and intensity with which these disasters have affected the state in recent years suggest the effects of wider ecological disturbances, but are also the consequences of unhampered and unplanned urban development. Located on the Indo-Burmese mountain arc, an offshoot of the Himalayas, Mizoram, with its 21 mountain ranges that run north to south, ranging in height from 1000m to 2000m above sea level, also falls within seismic zone 5, the highest level of seismicity in the earthquake zoning map of India. Recurrent disasters, especially landslides, as recently as those after the cyclonic storm Remal (2024) hit the region, and the ongoing monsoons have caused a profound sense of loss for the entire state that has a relatively low population density. The paper explores how the people of the state experience and respond to such disasters. With the resources of the state being limited, such disasters often rely on communitarian goodwill. What is the basis of this goodwill and what is the extent to which it operates? What forms does it take? How do people organize themselves in order to respond to these disasters? The answer seems to lie in a traditional ethic known as tlawmngaihna, which has always been a guiding principle for all forms of Mizo interaction. Tlawmngaihna can mean several things: from being humble, self-effacing, to having a heart of service; due to changing circumstances its practice and meaning have changed over the years, and the adoption of Christianity by the Mizos has also Christianized the concept. The paper will explore how tlawmngaihna manifests itself in times of disasters as well as in other ecological concerns of the state. The attempt will be to see how people negotiate and understand traditional ideas and practices in the context of ever-changing ecological conditions.

Title: When Things No Longer Align: Shifting Climes, Indigenous Knowledge and Place-Based Understanding in Northwestern Nepal

Abstract: This paper for the Special Issue on Faiths for Earth, Geo-Commoning, and New Ethics in the Himalayas examines local knowledge, perceptions of, and responses to climes — encompassing weather, climate, sacred landscapes, and agricultural livelihood systems — in the Trans-Himalayan region of Dolpa in Nepal. Our research focuses on the experiences of the Indigenous Tarali Magar people of Gumbatara in the Tichurong valley and narrates the effects of changing weather and climatic patterns on their surroundings and livelihoods. In this collaborative contribution, co-authored by a community member and two outside anthropologists with long-standing commitments to the region, we explore: (i) how agricultural practices are changing over time in response to economic and environmental changes; (ii) how and in what ways physical changes in the weather and climate are experienced and imagined by Taralis through the lens of the Tarali concepts of nham (weather) and sameu (time); and (iii) how local knowledge about variations in weather and climate are embedded within Tarali cultural and religious worldviews. We draw on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and comparative and historical analysis to answer these questions, situating our work within the emerging scholarly conversation about Himalayan climes and anthropogenic alterations. Based on conversations and interviews with Indigenous religious specialists, farmers, and herders, we describe and document how local rhythms and the socio-cultural practices of the Tarali community have been and continue to be impacted by clime-changes, offering a compelling case study of how one historically marginalized Himalayan community is coping with the uncertainties associated with these impacts. In this contribution, we demonstrate how understandings and interpretations held by the Indigenous Tarali community of their biophysical environment — including plants, soil, crops, livestock, and seasonality — reflect a place-based, transgenerational environmental ethics. We conclude that Taralis are reckoning with shifts in weather and climatic patterns that are disruptive to long standing agricultural practices and to cultural and religious knowledge systems that traditionally guide those practices. At the same time, we show how culturally-grounded, place-based religious practices in the Tichurong valley contribute to global imaginaries for sustainable futures and our living planet.

Title: ‘They Are Properties of The Deity, Not Sentient’: Tibetan Plant-hood, Cosmopolitics and Climate Change in Kham Tibet

Abstract: The Plantationocene is an analytic instrument to unfolding the socio-historical politics of human-plant-environment relationships in this age that the anthropogenic climate change has been recognised. During which, the worldwide types of plantations and post-colonial legacies are brought forward, while many other vegetal and cosmopolitical forms are overlooked, such as plants and pastoralist communities in which floristic power seems little. However, in the Tibetan Himalayas, plants are always socially and ethically contested, due to the plant blindness of the public, indifference to Buddhism knowledge, and scientific life ethics that came into vogue. This paper will initially propose the Tibetan Plant-hood by virtue to cosmopolitics of Tibetans. Meanwhile, this argued term Plant-hood would also go beyond Plant Personhood in philosophical terms. Thereafter, we aim to specialise the Kham Tibetan-plants assemblage on the ground via examinations of local communities with several socially important endemic plants – caterpillar fungus (Cordyceps sinensis L.), highland barley (Hordeum aegiceras L.), and Tibetan turnip (Brassica rapa L.). These hunted, cultivated, and seed-preserving plants extendedly sustain the daily lives of Tibetan agro-pastoralists. Plants are simultaneously suffering from and mitigating the localised consequences of climate change by uprooting themselves, diversifying materials, modifying lands, and compromising social relationships in the vortex of human-plant interconnectedness. Based on the interrogation to Tibetan Buddhism texts and long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this research argues for plants 1) as non-sentient beings in Tibetan Buddhism but undergo very epistemic and ethical contestations in quotidian Tibetan pastoral practices; and 2) as the novel ontological anchor that reexamines the confused Tibetan cosmopolitics – constituted of Tibetan Buddhism, traditional mythology, pastoralist practice, scientific and mandarin knowledge in the face of climate change of the globe and state-making of modern China – during which local social relationship, power and sovereignty are co-produced with this ‘blinded’ actant. Key Words: Plant-hood, Tibetan Buddhism, Epistemics and Ethics, Cosmopolitics, Climate Change