Earth and World: Roots and Routes

Abstract

As has often been noted, things are falling apart in our time. This applies to the rupture of family relations, the gulf between the rich and the poor, and the rift between nation-states and between the global “West” and the “rest.” Seen as a mode of permanent revolution, (Western) modernity has unleashed a process of relentless innovation, while sidelining or even obliterating traditional ways of life. In response to this process, modernity has also triggered a longing for locally grounded stability and the retrieval of past memories. Thus, in both the West and much of the “rest,” modern human life is caught in the pull of seemingly infinite strivings and the counterpull of finite backgrounds and historically nurtured origins. In a concise manner, Indian anthropologist and social theorist Ananta Kumar Giri has captured the gist of this counterpoint in the formula “roots and routes.”