Christopher Patrick Miller
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190456023
- eISBN:
- 9780190456054
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190456023.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter analyzes the confluence of environmental politics, biopolitics, and the cultural role of yoga in India. It begins with an overview of India’s current economic development challenges and ...
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This chapter analyzes the confluence of environmental politics, biopolitics, and the cultural role of yoga in India. It begins with an overview of India’s current economic development challenges and shows how the country’s current prime minister has subsumed both yoga bodies and water bodies into biopolitical discourse to support a neoliberal economic boom that will contribute to the proliferation of anthropogenic climate change. The chapter then argues that alternative forms of yoga aimed at nurturing intimacy between the human body and the natural world are helping to prevent unnecessary climate-change-producing development activities in India, including the river-linking project and other massive hydroelectric projects that threaten India’s riparian environments.Less
This chapter analyzes the confluence of environmental politics, biopolitics, and the cultural role of yoga in India. It begins with an overview of India’s current economic development challenges and shows how the country’s current prime minister has subsumed both yoga bodies and water bodies into biopolitical discourse to support a neoliberal economic boom that will contribute to the proliferation of anthropogenic climate change. The chapter then argues that alternative forms of yoga aimed at nurturing intimacy between the human body and the natural world are helping to prevent unnecessary climate-change-producing development activities in India, including the river-linking project and other massive hydroelectric projects that threaten India’s riparian environments.
Christopher Patrick Miller and Dianna Bell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190456023
- eISBN:
- 9780190456054
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190456023.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter brings together Hindu and Muslim thought on climate change in specific local contexts in India and Mali. The dialogue uncovers deep themes of economic power, environmental epistemology, ...
More
This chapter brings together Hindu and Muslim thought on climate change in specific local contexts in India and Mali. The dialogue uncovers deep themes of economic power, environmental epistemology, and power politics that emerge from the intersection of two essays. The power to flourish depends on politics as much as religion, it seems. We will see the roles played by government officials, bureaucrats, and spiritual leaders as both India and Mali negotiate the relationship between citizens and the natural environment. Government and bio-spiritual voices, potentially at odds, would do better to work together. The chapter ends with provocative and practical suggestions toward localizing environmental protection that might be achieved via the collaboration of these two voices.Less
This chapter brings together Hindu and Muslim thought on climate change in specific local contexts in India and Mali. The dialogue uncovers deep themes of economic power, environmental epistemology, and power politics that emerge from the intersection of two essays. The power to flourish depends on politics as much as religion, it seems. We will see the roles played by government officials, bureaucrats, and spiritual leaders as both India and Mali negotiate the relationship between citizens and the natural environment. Government and bio-spiritual voices, potentially at odds, would do better to work together. The chapter ends with provocative and practical suggestions toward localizing environmental protection that might be achieved via the collaboration of these two voices.
