Accidental Environmentalists
In the highlands of Ethiopia, the only remaining stands of native forest are around churches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Though hailed as community-conserved areas by environmentalists, we argue that the conservation of such forest is not intentional, but rather an indirect result of...
| Auteurs: | ; |
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| Type de support: | Électronique Article |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | En cours de chargement...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Publié: |
Brill
2018
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| Dans: |
Worldviews
Année: 2018, Volume: 22, Numéro: 2, Pages: 113-142 |
| Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés: | B
Äthiopische Kirche
/ Sanctuaire
/ Forêt
/ Signification
/ Us et coutumes
/ Protection
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| RelBib Classification: | CB Spiritualité chrétienne CH Christianisme et société KBN Afrique subsaharienne KCD Hagiographie KDF Église orthodoxe NBA Théologie dogmatique NCB Éthique individuelle RB Ministère ecclésiastique |
| Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church
Ethiopia
church forests
sacred natural sites
sacred groves
sacred geography
community-conservation area
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| Accès en ligne: |
Accès probablement gratuit Volltext (Verlag) |
| Résumé: | In the highlands of Ethiopia, the only remaining stands of native forest are around churches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Though hailed as community-conserved areas by environmentalists, we argue that the conservation of such forest is not intentional, but rather an indirect result of the religious norms, beliefs and practices surrounding the sites. In actuality, the religiosity surrounding church forests maintains the purity of the most holy space in the center of the shrine, the tabot, a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, which ensures that the church is a legitimate and effective portal to the divine. An underlying cultural logic of purity and pollution structures the spatial organization of the site outward into a series of concentric circles of diminishing purity and shapes the social order into an elegant hierarchy. This article seeks to understand the norms, beliefs and practices of this sacred geography in its social and religious context, arguing that ignorance of or inattention to these can undermine the conservation goals that have brought these forests, along with so many other sacred natural sites, to the attention of environmentalists around the world. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5357 |
| Contient: | In: Worldviews
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685357-02201101 |