Race and polytheisms/Paganisms
Mar 22, 2015 3:43:03 GMT -6
saintfelicity, Allec, and 4 more like this
Post by leithincluan on Mar 22, 2015 3:43:03 GMT -6
I thought this paper might be useful to some people.
www.academia.edu/10889949/Engendering_Difference_The_Post_colonial_Politics_of_Goddess_Spirituality
For me, I only encountered Kavita Maya's work last year, but it has transformed my thinking about race and polytheisms/Paganisms. While she mainly focuses on the Goddess Movement, there are a large amount of points where there is crossover into polytheisms and Paganisms. It would be easy to say "Oh, well we don't believe in a Great Mother Goddess, and we laugh at Gimbutas, so we're fine!" But the roots of both the Goddess Movement and modern Paganisms/polytheisms in the Romantic movement (if you go back far enough), and other similarities, make many of the issues relevant to us. In particular, the Romantic movement led to what Maya calls "the glorification of authentic pre-Christian roots" and says that this essentially "risks repoducing white ethnocentrism". Essentially, it doesn't matter how much we say "you don't have to be white with Irish or British roots to be a Gaelic or Brythonic polytheist", we are still part of a system that often glorifies the 'roots' of certain cultures. And that in itself can be problematic.
Sometimes we can swing the other way, too, and we want to be so clear at showing we're not racist that we point fingers in all directions but our own. It's easy to villify those who practice Norse Paganisms in a nationalist way, for example. But are we looking at the problems within the ideologies behind our own polytheisms too? That's what I've been most struck by, with Maya's work. How much I work on being non-culturally-appropriative and non-racist in some directions, but not others. For example, for a while I wanted to join Gaol Naofa because they are interested in finding a "pure" Irish culture. (To the extent that they rejected me because I do a few non-Gaelic things.) But the search for purity of culture, or even of 'authentic' worship, can be deeply problematic. We may think we're good and anti-racist because we don't smudge with sage and we condemn nationalist Paganisms. But are we looking at the ideologies of purity of culture and worship within our own practices? I've been deeply challenged on this issue because of Maya's work.
(It's worth noting that Kavita Maya is not an outsider to Paganisms, either. That's all I'm going to say there though, for her privacy.)
So I thought people might find this paper useful. As long as no one reads it about being *only* about the eclectic Goddess Movement, and feels smug that we polytheists do things better! In some ways we do, and in other ways, we don't.
www.academia.edu/10889949/Engendering_Difference_The_Post_colonial_Politics_of_Goddess_Spirituality
For me, I only encountered Kavita Maya's work last year, but it has transformed my thinking about race and polytheisms/Paganisms. While she mainly focuses on the Goddess Movement, there are a large amount of points where there is crossover into polytheisms and Paganisms. It would be easy to say "Oh, well we don't believe in a Great Mother Goddess, and we laugh at Gimbutas, so we're fine!" But the roots of both the Goddess Movement and modern Paganisms/polytheisms in the Romantic movement (if you go back far enough), and other similarities, make many of the issues relevant to us. In particular, the Romantic movement led to what Maya calls "the glorification of authentic pre-Christian roots" and says that this essentially "risks repoducing white ethnocentrism". Essentially, it doesn't matter how much we say "you don't have to be white with Irish or British roots to be a Gaelic or Brythonic polytheist", we are still part of a system that often glorifies the 'roots' of certain cultures. And that in itself can be problematic.
Sometimes we can swing the other way, too, and we want to be so clear at showing we're not racist that we point fingers in all directions but our own. It's easy to villify those who practice Norse Paganisms in a nationalist way, for example. But are we looking at the problems within the ideologies behind our own polytheisms too? That's what I've been most struck by, with Maya's work. How much I work on being non-culturally-appropriative and non-racist in some directions, but not others. For example, for a while I wanted to join Gaol Naofa because they are interested in finding a "pure" Irish culture. (To the extent that they rejected me because I do a few non-Gaelic things.) But the search for purity of culture, or even of 'authentic' worship, can be deeply problematic. We may think we're good and anti-racist because we don't smudge with sage and we condemn nationalist Paganisms. But are we looking at the ideologies of purity of culture and worship within our own practices? I've been deeply challenged on this issue because of Maya's work.
(It's worth noting that Kavita Maya is not an outsider to Paganisms, either. That's all I'm going to say there though, for her privacy.)
So I thought people might find this paper useful. As long as no one reads it about being *only* about the eclectic Goddess Movement, and feels smug that we polytheists do things better! In some ways we do, and in other ways, we don't.
