Ritual Village Music And Marginalised Musicians Of Western Orissa/odisha, India

This work presents the summarised results of an anthropological and ethno-musicological documentation of hitherto unknown traditions of sacred music performed by marginalised musicians and priest-musicians of the Adivasi (indigenous) Bora Sambar region of western Orissa/Odisha, India. The work is based on more than 30 months of ethnographic research in rural regions of western Orissa/Odisha

From non-Brahmin priests of the goddess to ascetics of god Mahima Alekha

This article deals with Mahima Dharma a contemporary vernacular ascetic religion of Odisha/Eastern India displaying a rich diversity in its regional configurations. In this paper the author proposes to look at the main protagonists of the religion, the ascetics (babas), as non-Brahmin priests, who have incorporated shakti, the power of local goddesses into their disciplined bodies and in doing so have transformed the feminine element of the Hindu belief into the belief of the indescribable and abstract god Alekha. Mahima Dharma is seen in this contribution as a sort of micro structure on the one hand of popular asceticism in rural India and on the other hand as a recent religious reform movement integrating local non-Brahmin priesthood and the local belief in goddesses into the mainstream of the male Hindu pantheon. This article draws on the author's PhD fieldwork research (1999-2002), published in 2002 as a monograph (Guzy 2002)

Indigenous Shamanic Worldviews as Dialogical Eco-Cosmology

This article deals with indigenous shamanic worldviews and indigenous knowledge as dialogical eco-cosmology. It shows the relevance of eco-cosmology as local indigenous ecological and spiritual knowledge in the context of global biodiversity and sustainability discourses

Epic, Ecocriticism, and Aesthetic Anthropology: New Approaches to the Environmental Challenges

This issue offers a selection of contributions by esteemed authors from the most diverse universities and institutes known for their work and commitment in Environmental Humanities, Ecocriticism, An-imal studies, Blue Sciences, Ethno-Ecology. Alongside them, a great space in this volume has been dedicated to the pioneering, experimental and creative work of younger researchers and postgradu-ates. We therefore propose a long journey through the literature and recent brilliant narratives com-ing from Africa and India, corroborated by exploratory and ethnographic scientific investigations at the ‘edge of the world’, from the distant islands of Scotland (St Kilda) to the Himalayan ridge (Sikkim). A series of Italian case studies document paradoxes and problems of the Sicilian land-scape, of feral tourism in Venice, and of the environmental policies of the lagoons in the Po River Del-ta. A renewed session dedicated to interviews, artistic performance and aesthetics enriches the final part of this volume. Through amazing productions from Australia, India, Italy, Estonia, the artist and the performer present themselves as a new sort of eco-political agents and mediators, in the attempt to process the traumatic anthropogenic ecological disaster and to reintegrate the individual into the living planet

Eco-cosmologies and the Spirit of Resilience

Ecological disasters, environmental collapses, and existential threats are real-time experiences of contemporary humanity. In an increasingly globalized world dominated by corporate interests of a military, digital, and financial complex, it is easy to lose hope and motivation. Given the scale of global and local destruction, it is crucial for us not to lose our moral orientation and resilience. This guidance can be offered from an anthropological perspective, which revisits indigenous knowledge of small-scale societies or minority cultures and examines their resilience and sustainability models of life