Performing Environmentalisms

Performing Environmentalisms examines the existential challenge of the twenty-first century: improving the prospects for maintaining life on our planet. The contributors focus on the strategic use of traditional artistic expression--storytelling and songs, crafted objects, and ceremonies and rituals--performed during the social turmoil provoked by environmental degradation and ecological collapse. Highlighting alternative visions of what it means to be human, the authors place performance at the center of people''s responses to the crises. Such expression reinforces the agency of human beings as they work, independently and together, to address ecological dilemmas. The essays add these people''s critical perspectives--gained through intimate struggle with life-altering force--to the global dialogue surrounding humanity''s response to climate change, threats to biocultural diversity, and environmental catastrophe.

Contributors: Aaron S. Allen, Eduardo S. Brondizio, Assefa Tefera Dibaba, Rebecca Dirksen, Mary Hufford, John Holmes McDowell, Mark Pedelty, Jennifer C. Post, Chie Sakakibara, Jeff Todd Titon, Rory Turner, Lois Wilcken