Indigenous, Modern and Postcolonial Relations to Nature

Angela Roothaan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on African intercultural philosophy, philosophy of values and spirit ontologies. She has published books (in Dutch) on Spinoza, on nature in ethics, on truth, on spirituality and on ghosts/spirits in modern culture. Together with P. Nullens and S. van den Heuvel she published the edited volume Theological Ethics and Moral Value Phenomena: The Experience of Values (Routledge, 2017). Her philosophical blog can be found here: http://angelaroothaan.wordpress.com

"Roothaan’s Indigenous, Modern and Postcolonial Relations to Nature takes a fresh approach to dialogue between modern Western and indigenous or traditional approaches to nature. She neither insists that non-Western environmentalisms follow Western science before dialogue can begin, nor does she turn non-Western approaches to nature into a version of Romanticism. This book will be of interest to African philosophers and other non-Western philosophers, intercultural philosophers, environmental humanists, anthropologists, postcolonial studies scholars, and many others." Bruce Janz, Department of Philosophy and Center for Humanities & Digital Research, University of Central Florida"Dr Roothaan’s inspiring quest for an intercultural rendering of human relations to nature challenges the modernist epistemological monopoly. Arguing convincingly that indigenous systems of knowledge are equally viable, this book shows how they provide promising models for a negotiation of the environment in this era of global environmental threats."Dr Pius Mosima, University of Bamenda, Cameroon

• Preface and Acknowledgments A World of Motion and Emergence: an Outline of what’s at stake Ending the Othering of Indigenous Knowledge in Philosophy and the Ontological Turn in Cultural Anthropology When the Spirits were banned: Kant versus Swedenborg The Return of (animal) Spirits in the Modern Western World Deconstructing or Decolonizing the Human–Animal Divide Vital Force: A Belgico-African Missionary’s Spirited Philosophy Decolonizing Nature: the Case of the Mourning Elephants Spirited Trees – Negotiating secular, religious and traditionalist frameworks Blurred, Spirited and Touched: from ‘the Study of Man’ to an Anim(al)istic AnthropologyReferencesIndex