Can Animism Save the World? Reflections on Personhood and Complexity in the Ecological Crisis

Abstract

The term “animism” is at once a fantasy internal to modernity and a semiotic conduit enabling a serious inquiry into non-modern phenomena that radically call into question the modern distinction of nature and culture. Therefore, I suggest that the labelling of people, practices or ideas as “animist” is a strategic one. I also raise the question if animism can help to solve the modern ecological crisis that allegedly stems from the nature-culture divide. In particular, animism makes it possible to recognize personhood in non-humans, thus creating moral relationships with the non-human world. A number of scholars and activists identify animism as respect for all living beings and as intimate relationships with nature and its spirits. However, this argument still presupposes the fixity of the ontological status of beings as alive or persons. A different view of animism highlights concepts of fluid and unstable persons that emerge from ongoing communicative processes. I argue that the kind of attentiveness that drives fluid personhood may be supportive of a politics of life that sees relationships with non-humans in terms of moral commitment.

Counterintuitive utopias

“…"The gift relationship" by Richard Titmuss (1997) examines blood donations as gifts that do not create a bond between giver and receiver. Similarly, studies of development aid (Stirrat and Henkel 1997) or philanthropy (Adloff and Sigmund 2005) ignore these issues.…”

“…Among the Rmeet in northern Laos, spirits are frequently doubted or need consolidation before they become ready to communicate. Beings such as rice spirits stand between person and impersonal life force; for some places or things people disagree whether they are inhabited by spirits or not (Sprenger 2017). This is quite typical of Southeast Asian cosmologies.…”