Nature, harmony, and the kaliyugaya - Global/local discourses on the human-environment relationship

Journal/Book: Curr Anthropol. 2000; 41: 5720 South Woodlawn Ave, Chicago, IL 60637-1603, USA. Univ Chicago Press. 249-268.

Abstract: ''Living in harmony with nature'' has become a root metaphor and an imperative in a postcolonial global discourse on environmental crisis. This article uses an interpretive approach to problematize the concepts of ''harmony'' and ''nature'' by juxtaposing ''global'' and ''local'' discourses on the human-environment relationship. It argues that harmony is a ''Western/global'' discourse borrowed by Sri Lankan environmentalists that has varying levels of resonance with ''local'' cultural concepts through a discussion of myths of the Golden Age, nature and morality, the human-deity-nature triad, and the microcosm-macrocosm relationship. The harmony discourse, however, leaves no space for the articulation of an alternative local discourse on the kaliyugaya, which also offers an interpretation of environmental crisis.

Note: Article Weeratunge N, 22-7 Wijerama Mawath, Colombo 7, SRI LANKA

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