Although ecofeminism “encompasses a wide gamut of ideas and actions, from resurrecting ancient forms of goddess worship to connecting social concerns about environmental
contamination,” and thus finds a
strong connection with deep ecologists, it is the ecofeminists’ regard for the concept of
reproduction, “construed in its broadest sense to include the continued biological and social reproduction of human life and the continuation of life on earth,”27 that sets them most distinctly apart.
However, this work by ecofeminists and the deep ecologists has resulted in a new, more
philosophical trend in bioregionalism that calls for a new human consciousness to emerge, “one of humility, which recognizes all life, including the importance of all life.”28 This trend becomes most often associated with a renewed interest in Native American thought, because, although there are distinct differences among Native Americans and their respective theoretical foundations, it is the Native Americans’ general attachment to the land and their holding of nature to be sacred the bioregionalists find so attractive.
For example, bioregionalists often quote Vine Deloria, Jr., as being representative of Native American sensibilities. As Deloria noted:
The vast majority of Indian tribal religions have a center at a particular place, be it river, mountain, plateau, valley, or other natural place. Many of the smaller non-universal religions also depend upon a number of holy places for the practice of their religious activities. In part, the affirmation of the existence of holy places confirms tribal peoples’ rootedness, which Western man is peculiarly without.29
Native Americans and their thought represent to bioregionalists the intimacy of man with the environment. It is as though all ‘the Earth and life upon it were fully alive and deserving of a reciprocal, respectful relationship.’
Such a position implies there is no real distinction between Native Americans, their lives, their cultures, their histories, or the land. They are inseparably intertwined. As Paula Gunn Allen says,
we are the land … More than remembered, the earth is the mind of the people as we are the mind of the earth … The land is not really the place (separate from ourselves) where we act out the drama of our isolated destinies. It is not the ever-present “Other” which supplies us with a sense of “I.” It is rather a part of our being, dynamic, significant, real. It is ourself, in a real a sense as our notions of “ego,” “libido,” or social network, in a sense more real than any conceptualization or abstraction about the nature of the human being can ber e.30
Arguably, having accepted similar conceptual parameters, bioregionalists and Native Americans strive for similar goals. If they can be articulated, then it is the hope, as people become familiar with a particular place, and not “just place in general,” a new and distinct spiritualism and way of life will emerge.
Yet, bioregionalists turn not just to Native American thought for support. The field of postmodernism–particularly, the subfields of postmodern feminism and postmodern environmental ethics–is moving along similar lines of thought, although the primary vehicle is the language contained in specific locations. In other words, postmodern feminists suggest dominant cultures tend to suppress voices and discourse amongst people through the totalizing language of a dominant culture. For them, it is necessary to find a means for more
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Work by ecofeminists and the deep ecologists has resulted in a new, more philosophical trend in bioregionalism that calls for a new human consciousness to emerge, “one of humility, which recognizes all life, including the importance of all life.
- Annie E. Booth and Harvey M. Jacobs, Ties That Bind