Ecojustice, Religious Folklife and a Sound Ecology

Abstract

In this essay I claim that folk, traditional, and indigenous ecological knowledges have a significant role to play in ecojustice; and I bring to bear a case study in the traditional ecological knowledge among one of the religious communities with whom I have spent several decades, illustrating how they embody the main principle and three fields of an ecological rationality. Ecological rationality stands in contrast to economic rationality, a branch of instrumental reason. exemplified by what economists call rational choice theory2 . An ecological rationality is based in the principles of connection, relation, engagement, cooperation and interdependence, in contrast to the economic rationality of separation, distance, individualism, and self-interest.3 I conclude with a gesture to my current project of a sound ecology, a thought experiment in which sounds rather than texts or objects enable the connections that lead to sound experience, sound communities, sound economies, and a sound ecology. A sound ecology embodies an ecological rationality aimed at who we think we are, how we know what we know, and what we can do to bring about ecojustice in a sustainable world.