Defending Mother Earth: Native American Perspectives on Environmental Justice

by Jace Weaver (editor)

Defending Mother Earth brings together important Native voices to address urgent issues of environmental devastation as they affect the indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. The essays document a range of ecological disasters, including the devastating effects of mining, water pollution, nuclear power facilities, and toxic waste dumps. In an expression of "environmental racism," such hazards are commonly located on or near Indian lands. Many of the authors included in Defending Mother Earth are engaged in struggles to resist these dangers. As their essays consistently demonstrate, these struggles are intimately tied to the assertion of Indian sovereignty and the affirmation of Native culture: the Earth is, indeed, Mother to these nations. In his concluding theological reflection, George Tinker argues that the affirmation of Indian spiritual values, especially the attitude toward the Earth, may hold out a key to the survival of the planet and all its peoples.

Genres: Indigenous, Native Americans, Nonfiction, Politics, Race, Environment

205 pages, Paperback

First published June 27, 1996

About the author

Jace Weaver is Franklin Professor of Native American Studies and Religion at the University of Georgia. He is the author of The Red Atlantic: American Indigenes and the Making of the Modern World, 1000–1927.

Reviews

[Belle Meade School]

305.89

[Mckinley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read select chapters (2 and 10). Individualism (western) and the destruction of indigenous communities