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Haitian Vodou and Ecotheology
Author(s) -
Weber A. S.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the ecumenical review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.104
H-Index - 7
eISSN - 1758-6623
pISSN - 0013-0796
DOI - 10.1111/erev.12393
Subject(s) - worship , scholarship , sociology , environmental ethics , dominion , law , philosophy , political science
This contribution reviews ecotheological perspectives among traditional practitioners of the West African religions known as Vodun and Voodoo and their diasporic syncretic variants Hoodoo, Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo, using Haiti as the main case study. Based on ethnographic and comparative religion scholarship, as well as consultation with researchers in the field, it discusses Voodoo traditions in light of modern ecotheological concerns, such as sustainability, dominion over nature, anthropocentrism, and animal rights. It also discusses the sometimes accommodating and sometimes hostile relationship with Catholicism with respect to nature and spirit worship, and the overlap of saints and Voodoo spirits as intermediaries. Despite finding a striking disjunction between environmentally unfriendly practices in Haiti and its religious views of nature as sacred, the paper argues that the historical adaptability and accommodationism of Haitian Vodou practices may provide the basis for an eco‐friendly approach to natural resource management and a renewed spiritualized view of nature.