Conversations in the Rainforest Culture, Values, and the Environment in Central Africa

About this book

Peterson interweaves the ideas of African and Africanist historians, theologians, anthropologists, philosophers, writers, and ecologists with a series of remarkable conversations he shared with inhabitants of the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Contents

Conservation for whom?; The limitations of imported knowledge; thinking about our thinking; the limitations of indigenous technical knowledge; decolonizing the mind - beyond ITK toward Afrocentricity; Afrocentricity and the environment; the tale of the microhydro and the Mami Wata; bridge blueprints; Central African land ethics - theoretical questions and research perspectives; ecology, values, and value transformation; environmental ethics in global perspective; environmental ethics in Central Africa; universalism and pluralism: the "one/many problem"; is nature normative? premodern world views and postmodern ecological science; premodern world views and the nature-culture relationship; ecological science and the nature-culture relationship; What Is Africa? listening to local people's voices; so what? central African environmental ethics and environmental justice; repair and reconstruction - signs of hope grounded in African soil; methods and research process; conversation, lived experience, and radical empiricism; focus groups; narrative and interpretation; summary and conclusion; narratives on nature - an opening conversation with Ubangian farmers; a narrative approach; Loko - amid forest and savanna; Bogofo - an initial group discussion; conclusion; parts of a whole - nature, society, and cosmology in the Ubangi; making a living - implicit means of conservation; diversification of the household economy; integration and periodicity of resource use; rotational harvesting of game and fish; sanctions against waste; optimizing, not maximizing, production; benign technologies; production for consumption more than for markets; controls on population growth; living with neighbours - the individual-community relationship; (Part contents)

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