Performing Environmentalisms

Abstract

Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change is a fresh contribution to the environmental humanities, offering ten original essays anchored in the fields of folklore studies and ethnomusicology that engage productively with forms of traditional expressive culture at the crux of environmental debate and conflict. These essays draw on ethnographic research in several world regions to explore the ways individuals and groups express and perform their connection to the environment as they interpret changing environments, manage ecological crises, and seek to change policies, minds, and practices. Performing Environmentalisms brings together a set of essays that focus on genres and practices of expressive culture—songs, stories, handicrafts, and ritual and activist practices—as these are employed to come to grips with ecological change, and in doing so, argues for performing environmentalisms as a valuable perspective on ecological change and environmental crisis in the Anthropocene. The book consists of a substantial introduction, laying the foundation for thinking about expressive culture as an instrument of environmental discourse, followed by essays grouped into three sections: Perspectives on Diverse Environmentalisms, Performing the Sacred, and Environmental Attachments; a thoughtful afterword by Eduardo Brondizio locates Performing Environmentalisms as a welcome contribution toward a holistic approach to environmental issues.