Magia, visão e ação

Culturas indígenas e antigas tradições espirituais centradas na Terra, vindas da Europa e do Oriente Médio, veem o mundo como relacional, como uma teia de vida interconectada. Essa percepção introduz perspectivas fundamentais para enfrentarmos as grandes crises de nosso tempo: colapso ambiental massivo em escala global, além da enorme disfunção social e política dele derivada. Precisamos de ferramentas e de uma visão clara de outras possibilidades para a cura de ecossistemas, de sistemas sociais e indivíduos, bem como de estratégias de organização, criação de redes e enfrentamento do poder. Baseando-se em sua ficção visionária e em décadas de trabalho dedicados à permacultura, ao ativismo e à espiritualidade centrada na Terra, Starhawk sugere como podemos levar adiante essa mudança.Indigenous cultures and ancient European and Middle Eastern earth-based spiritual traditions see the world as relational, as a web of interconnected l i fe. That consciousness furnishes key understandings for approaching the great crises of our time: massive environmental on a global scale, and the massive social and political dysfunction that drives it. To heal, we need. We need tools and a clear vision of other possibilities for healing both ecosystems, social systems and individuals, and we need strategies for organizing, networking, and confronting power. Starhawk draws on her visionary fiction, and her decades of work in permaculture, activism, and earth-based spirituality to suggest how we can make this shift

Rethinking the Interplay of Feminism and Secularism in a Neo-Secular Age

The need to re-examine established ways of thinking about secularism and its relationship to feminism has arisen in the context of the confluence of a number of developments including: the increasing dominance of the 'clash of civilizations' thesis; the expansion of postmodern critiques of Enlightenment rationality to encompass questions of religion; and sustained critiques of the 'secularization thesis'. Conflicts between the claims of women's equality and the claims of religion are well-documented vis-à-vis all major religions and across all regions. The ongoing moral panic about the presence of Islam in Europe, marked by a preoccupation with policing Muslim women's dress, reminds us of the centrality of women and gender power relations in the interrelation of religion, culture and the state. Added to postmodern and other critiques of the secular-religious binary, most sociological research now contradicts the equation of modernization with secularization. This article focuses on the challenges that these developments pose to politically-oriented feminist thinking and practice. It argues that non-oppressive feminist responses require a new critical engagement with secularism as a normative principle in democratic, multicultural societies. To inform this process, the author maps and links discussions across different fields of feminist scholarship, in the sociology of religion and in political theory. She organizes the main philosophical traditions and fault lines that form the intellectual terrain at the intersection of feminism, religion and politics in two broad groups: feminist critiques of the Enlightenment critique of religion; and feminist scholarship at the critical edges of the Enlightenment tradition. The author argues that notwithstanding the fragmented nature of feminist debates in this area, common ground is emerging across different politically oriented approaches: all emphasize 'democracy' and the values that underpin it as the larger discursive frame in which the principle of secularism can be redefined with emancipatory intent in a neo-secular age.peer-reviewe

A Mixed Blessing: Market-Mediated Religious Authority in Neopaganism

This research explores how marketplace dynamics affect religious authority in the context of Neopagan religion. Drawing on an interpretivist study of Wiccan practitioners in Italy, we reveal that engagement with the market may cause considerable, ongoing tensions, based on the inherent contradictions that are perceived to exist between spirituality and commercial gain. As a result, market success is a mixed blessing that can increase religious authority and influence, but is just as likely to decrease authority and credibility. Using an extended case study method, we propose a theoretical framework that depicts the links between our informants’ situated experiences and the macro-level factors affecting religious authority as it interacts with market-mediated dynamics at the global level. Overall, our study extends previous work in macromarketing that has looked at religious authority in the marketplace) and how the processes of globalization are affecting religion