Crochet Methodology Thinking Creatively about and with the Study of Religion in the Anthropocene
Main Article Content
Keywords
Anthropocene, the study of religion, crochet methodology, feminist theory, kinship
Abstract
What stories of religion matter in the age of the Anthropocene? This paper begins by situating the Abundance Crochet Coral Reef, an installation of crocheted coralline landscapes exhibited at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, as a methodological motif and enactment to think creatively about and with the study of religion in the Anthropocene. Journeying through the current trends in various fields in the study of religion that are responsive to Anthropocene concerns, I argue that there is a growing body of scholarly work that troubles the dualisms and hierarchies of human-nature and nature-culture that have informed, and indeed, dominated, conceptualizations about religion and the study of religion. Finally, I turn to feminist theory to continue to in-tune religion storytelling (the study of religion) to the challenges of the Anthropocene. Drawing inspiration from the Abundance Crochet Coral Reef, I explore the concept of kinship to open creative vistas for methodological enrichment in the study of religion.
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Embroideries as a Decolonising Framework,” International Journal of Inclusive Education, 20.3 (2016): 246-260. DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2015.1047661.
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Ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.
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An Introduction”, in Nature, Science, and Religion: Intersections Shaping Society and the Environment (Santa Fe, N.M.: SAR Press, 2012).
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Verbum Et Ecclesia 35, no. 1 (2014): 1–9.
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Fulcrum, 2009.
Francisco, CA.: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010.
African Association for the Study of Religions, https://www.a-asr.org/. Accessed October 30,
2023.
Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of
Matter and Meaning. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007.
Bardhan, A. and A. Bhattacharya. “Role of Traditional Crafts in Sustainable Development
and Building Community Resilience: Case Stories from India.” Culture. Society.
Economy. Politics, 2, no. 1 (2022): 38¬–50. https://doi.org/10.2478/csep-2022-0004.
Barnhill, David Landis and Roger S. Gottlieb. Deep Ecology and World Religions: New
Essays on Sacred Grounds. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2001.
Beaman, Lori G. and Lauren Strumos, “Toward Equality: Including Non-Human Animals in
Studies of Lived Religion and Nonreligion,” Social Compass, 2023: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/00377686231170993.
Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.
Chidester, David. Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa
University Press of Virginia, 1996.
Chidester, David. Empire of Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Chidester, David. Religion: Material Dynamics. Oakland, CA: University of California Press,
2018.
de la Cadena, Marisol. Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 2015.
Demos, T. J. Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today. Berlin:
Sternberg Press, 2007.
Eaton, Heather. Introducing Ecofeminist Theologies. New York: T&T Clark International,
2005.
Gebara, Ivone. Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation. Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1999.
Gottlieb, Roger S. This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment. New York: Routledge,
1996.
Grim, John (ed.). Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and
Community. Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by the Harvard Press for the Centre for the
Study of World Religions, 2001.
Gross, Rita. Feminism and Religion: An Introduction. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.
Grosz, Elisabeth. “The Future of Feminist Theory: Dreams for New Knowledges”, in H.
Gunkel , C. Nigianni, and F. Soderback (eds.), Undutiful Daughters: New Directions in Feminist Thought and Practice. New York: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2012, 13–22.
Halberstam, Jack. Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire. Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 2020.
Hasan, Heba. “Islam and Ecological Sustainability: An Exploration into Prophet’s Perspective
on Environment,” Social Science Journal for Advanced Research 2.6 (2022): 9–14. DOI: 10.54741/ssjar.2.6.3.
Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham and
London: Duke University Press, 2016.
Haraway, Donna. “Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege
of partial perspective,” Feminist Studies, 14(3) (1988): 575–599.
Haraway, Donna, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in
the Late Twentieth Century”, Socialist Review, 80 (1985): 65–108.
Hinton, Peta and Iris van der Tuin, “Feminist Matters: The Politics of New Materialism,”
Women: A Cultural Review 25.1 (2014).
Hoel, Nina. “Feminisme i Antropocen”, in Marius Timmann Mjaaland, Thomas Hylland
Eriksen og Dag O. Hessen (eds.), Antropocen. Menneskets tidsalder. Oslo: Res Publica, forthcoming January 2024, 131–149.
Hoel, Nina and Elaine Nogueira-Godsey. “Transforming Feminisms: Religion, Women and
Ecology,” Journal for the Study of Religion 24.2 (2011): 5–16.
Institute for Figuring. “Crochet Coral Reef.” Accessed October 30, 2023.
https://crochetcoralreef.org/about/theproject/
Jenkins, Willis. The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice and Religious Creativity
Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2013.
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture,
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSRNC. Accessed October 30, 2023.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and
the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2013.
Kirby, Vicky. Quantum Anthropology: Life at Large. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.
Marder, Michael. Green Mass: The Ecological Theology of St. Hildegard of Bingen. Stanford,
California: Stanford University Press, 2021.
Margulis, Lynn. Symbolic Planet. A New Look at Evolution. New York, NY: Basic Books,
1998.
McMenamin, Mark and Dianna McMenamin. Hypersea. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1994.
Merchant, Carolyn. Earthcare: Women and the Environment. London: Routledge, 1996.
Moore, Jason (ed.). Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of
Capitalism. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2016.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man. London: Unwin
Paperbacks, 1976.
Neimanis, Astrida. Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology. London:
Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Neimanis, Astrida. “Hydrofeminism: Or, on Becoming a Body of Water,” in H. Gunkel, C.
Nigianni, and F. Soderback (eds.), Undutiful Daughters: New Directions in Feminist Thought and Practice. New York: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2012, 85–99.
Neimanis, Astrida and Rachel Loewen Walker, “Weathering: Climate Change and the ‘Thick
Time’ of Transcorporality,” Hypathia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 29.3 (2014): 558–575.
Pérez-Bustos, Tania and Andrea Bello-Tocancipá. “Thinking Methodologies with Textiles,
Thinking Textiles as Methodologies in the Context of Transitional Justice,” Qualitative Research, Nov 30 2023, OnlineFirst, 1–21.
DOI: 10.1177/14687941231216639.
Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge, 1993.
Rasmussen, Larry L. Earth-Honoring Faith: Religious Ethics in a New Key. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2013.
Romano, Nike, Vivienne Bozalek and Tamara Shefer (eds.), CriSTaL (Critical Studies in
Teaching and Learning) Special Issue: Thinking with Ocean/s for Reconceptualising Scholarship in Higher Education, 11, 2 (2023). DOI:10.14426/cristal.v11iSI2.722.
Ruether, Rosemary Radford. New Woman, New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and Human
Liberation. New York: Seabury Press, 1975.
Segalo, Puleng. “Embroidered Voices: Exposing Hidden Trauma Stories of Apartheid,”
TEXTILE, 21.2 (2023): 422–434. DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2022.2036071.
Segalo, Puleng. “Using Cotton, Needles and Threads to Break the Women's Silence:
Embroideries as a Decolonising Framework,” International Journal of Inclusive Education, 20.3 (2016): 246-260. DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2015.1047661.
Teague, Ellen. Becoming a Green Christian. Kevin Mayhew Ltd., 2009.
Tsing, Anna. “Earth Stalked by Man,” Cambridge Anthropology 34.1 (2016): 2–16.
Tsing, Anna. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist
Ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.
Tucker, Catherine M. and Adrian J. Ivakhiv, “Intersections of Nature, Science, and Religion:
An Introduction”, in Nature, Science, and Religion: Intersections Shaping Society and the Environment (Santa Fe, N.M.: SAR Press, 2012).
Viviers, Hendrik. “The Second Christ, Saint Francis of Assisi and Ecological Consciousness,”
Verbum Et Ecclesia 35, no. 1 (2014): 1–9.
Warren, Karen, Ecological Ecofeminism. New York: Routledge, 1994.
White, Lynn. “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis,” Science 155(3767): 1203–1207.
Wildcat, Daniel R. Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge. Golden, CO:
Fulcrum, 2009.
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Jan 1, 2024
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Crochet Methodology: Thinking Creatively about and with the Study of Religion in the Anthropocene. (2024). African Journal of Gender and Religion, 29(2). https://doi.org/10.36615/ajgr.v29i2.2800
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How to Cite
Crochet Methodology: Thinking Creatively about and with the Study of Religion in the Anthropocene. (2024). African Journal of Gender and Religion, 29(2). https://doi.org/10.36615/ajgr.v29i2.2800