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2019
‘From Pleistocene to Anthropocene: When Rain Dancing and Fire of Agni are Just Not Enough’ The Exhaustive Research Proposal Draft for the 2020 Grant Application for the VU Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Ethics of the Anthropocene; Religion, Ethics, and Global Environmental Change –‘Geoengineering of Human Death in Asia’: Explorations from the Ancient Human Desire for the Control of Nature to the Present Threat of a Monsoon Breakdown in Asia and the Risk of a Near Future Nuclear Apocalypse No One had Wanted but May Now Have to Face. Includes the Cover Letter Submission from Veli Albert Kallio to Detail Research Interests and Plans for the Fellowship. (The detailed draft of my research proposal [Section 2] has finally uploaded to the Academia.edu web site. Further sections for the proposed research will follow in due course. Overall, the research is still largely a work in progress - seeking for grants to its various elements - but there are already some important insights that may offer valuable avenues for further investigations from the sections available on this study of Ethnoclimatology, ethics from the past to the present.)
2019 •
‘From Pleistocene to Anthropocene: When Rain Dancing and Fire of Agni are Just Not Enough’ The Exhaustive Research Proposal Draft for the 2020 Grant Application for the VU Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Ethics of the Anthropocene; Religion, Ethics, and Global Environmental Change –‘Geoengineering of Human Death in Asia’: Explorations from the Ancient Human Desire for the Control of Nature to the Present Threat of a Monsoon Breakdown in Asia and the Risk of a Near Future Nuclear Apocalypse No One had Wanted but May Now Have to Face. Includes the Cover Letter Submission from Veli Albert Kallio to Detail Research Interests and Plans for the Fellowship. (Please read the summary statement of my research proposal cover note first - a separate summary document - from Academia.edu web site before reading this document. Overall the research and its various sections are still largely a work in progress but there may be some important insights that may offer valuable avenues for further investigations and I am looking forward your feedback on the ideas especially on Section 2 enclosed.)
The grant nomination derives ultimately from the First Nations of Americas 1992 United Nations' General Assembly Motion by His Honourable faith-keeper Thomas Banyacya of Hopi Nation which was introduced and seconded by His Honourable faith-keeper Professor Oren Lyons Jr. of Seneca Nation on 10-11th December 1992. This incorporates various nations' alternate ideas about the future climate changes based on their perceived ancient 'historical recollections' suggesting suitable responses to the rapid climate change occurring presently - varying from adaptation to geoengineering. [NOMINATION: Tuesday, 29th September 2015 by Professor Sir Ghillean Prance FRS, VMH]. Unfortunately, modern ‘New Age’ or ‘Mayanism’ movements, and several environmentalist groups working along with these groups, have conspired against the traditional Native American Indian weather modification and climate control communities like the rain dancers by recently conjuring up fake histories about the First Nations of Americas, including populist news reports that are extremely hostile about geoengineering which make false claims about the commonly shared ‘golden Native American Indian Age of non-interference with Mother Nature’ espousing a very strict ‘hands-off’ laissez-faire code against all types of climate interventions (forgetting that the Native American Indian communities themselves have attempted to control their weather and climate for several ‘thousands of years’ by many interventions like those of rain dancing, animal and human sacrifices, prayers, blood-letting and other types of 'embryonic geoengineering' with the aim to change the weather and climate to a more favourable regime to benefit the humankind. The extremely damaging effects from these campaign groups’ political propaganda to rain dancers and other indigenous climate modifiers is blatantly obvious as their false notion appeared even within the actual VU Grant Description's text – which attaches negative suggestions about the indigenous peoples' perceived "historical position" against all climate modification (geoengineering), plant manipulation, and de-extinction. In fact, the Native American Indians were very often rather keen to modify both the short-term weather and the longer term climates along other things natural. Take notice of this erraneous notion even in the VU Grant Guidelines (See APPENDIX, II Bullet Point, Page 36): “How do religious worldviews view novel (potential) PROBLEMS of the Anthropocene that are brought about by technological developments, SUCH AS ‘GEO-ENGINEERING’ [sic.] (that is, ‘MANAGING’ PLANETARY SYSTEMS [sic.] ‘Plan B’, climate modification, geoengineering, today is never meant to be an excuse to ignore our need to rein in emissions of greenhouse gases. Instead, we indigenous proponents of geoengineering view it as a 'positive continuation' of ancient rain dancing and other climate change engineering traditions of the world's indigenous peoples. We, thus, propose to argue the activity to be a positive development i.e. to prevent the current overheating of sea water over the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and make it cooled by regional geoengineering technique of cloud brightening to reduce the expulsion rates of algae from the reef’s heat-stressed corals (coral bleaching), or to reduce carbon from the air to enhance exoskeleton development in marine fauna. In March 2016, as much as 95% of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef may face death from the present heat-induced coral bleaching. We support many similar geoengineering proposals to address various environmental problems from the loss of Arctic sea ice from the North Pole to the current coral losses at the Equator and reduce climate stress in all the regions in between them, if it were possible. Both geoengineering and rain dancing are practised for their OWN sakes in order to provide SOLUTIONS to the world's existing problems, not to create problems (such as wars and famines like some distorted reporting claim). The biased campaigners making up these 'alternate histories' attempt to both replace and erase the ancient Native American Indian weather and climate modification traditions and practises by their campaign groups own, barely decade-old propaganda. More information on the indigenous peoples' multimillennial efforts especially on the climate and weather modification and the true historical positions of the Native American Indians are found here to refute all the fake academic and popular claims: http://tribaldirectory.com/information/rain-dance.html
Adaptation drives evolution and climate change poses significant challenges for unadaptable species. Despite this well-known fact, climate change mitigation and adaptation policies are explicitly pointed toward the same practices shown to cause climate instability. This research emerges at the intersection of studies in religion, spirits, and states in Southeast Asia and more recent investigations into land use and climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. My findings show 2 important things. First, ineffective climate change mitigation and adaptation policies are grounded in particular visions of progress and are supported by a deep belief in human exceptionalism. Second, these ideas can be traced to origin stories from the planet's major civilizations, which make them both widespread and cultural. Culture is a human creation. This observation can pave the way for new thinking about what it means to be civilized in the world and ignite solutions for real human adaptation to the coming crisis. We have irrefutable evidence that climate instability is a product of human development and population growth. Additionally, research shows that climate change mitigation and adaptation policies entail carbon intensive inputs and infrastructures (Timilsina and Mevel, 2013; Mulvaney 2014; Zhang and Xu 2015). This paper explores current climate change mitigation and adaptation policies (CCMA), which propose no alterations to our current production-driven, consumption-oriented economy and encourage business to continue as usual. Such policies are difficult to explain and are embedded in complex systems of markets, finance, governance, and profits. Potentially dangerous alterations to the earth's climate drive the simple research question that grounds this article. How can 'business-as-usual' economic policies continue unchanged? Greed is often put forward as a logical explanation. Greed is surely part of it, and addiction, but it seems a shallow explanation. Others suggest the insatiable desire at the root of all human nature. This paper will not address the fallacy of human nature as a concept, but will attempt to disrupt human nature as an explanation. Climate policy today seems to be burdened by economic and social policies that measure development progress, from least-developed to most-developed nations. In this short think piece, I begin excavating these policies and find their antecedents in deeply held and widely shared beliefs that have little to do with science or contemporary understandings of ecosystems and economics. I argue that the seemingly irrational decision to continue economic growth in the face of its radical consequences is situated in the origin stories of the planet's major civilizations. The exceptional status of the human animal and its special connection to divine bodies is at the core of these beliefs. Also fundamental to these origin stories are developing technologies of agriculture, healing, transportation, warfare, and then bringing these civilizing elements to all people of the planet through territorial conquest. The unquestioned benefits of these practices remain with us and are still practiced and honored today. When viewed through the lens of climate change, the rational for continuing the pursuit of population growth, agricultural
World Archaeology, Special volume on Archaeology and Environmental Ethics (ed. J. Shaw)
Archaeology, climate change and environmental ethics: diachronic perspectives on human:non-human:environment worldviews, activism and care (2016)2016 •
Shaw, J. 2016. "Archaeology, Climate-Change and Environmental Ethics: Diachronic Perspectives on Human:Non-Human:Environment Worldviews, Activism and Care." World Archaeology 48(4): 449-465. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00438243.2016.1326754 [Introduction to special volume on Archaeology and Environmental Ethics] Abstract: This paper calls for archaeological engagement with the ethical dimension of past:present:future global environmental discourse and Anthropocene studies. In contrast to the recent chronological focus of archaeology’s engagement with Anthropocene studies, and its often rather generalised call for recognising the relevance of historically attested adaptive responses to climate change to current challenges, it highlights the need to examine the individual contributing and resulting factors of climate change and extreme environmental events. It advocates an approach that combines archaeology’s traditional focus on the practical and material elements of disaster management, with one that explores historical epistemologies of human:non-human care and entanglement, and socio-religious and collective ideological movements as driving forces behind historically specific environmental ethics. In relation to the ‘non-human’ element of the human:non-human:environment configuration there is special emphasis not only on non-human animals, but also conceptualisations of divine, ‘supra-human’, and numinous entities and spheres such as gods, spirits, and sacred places which are essential for attaining fully syncretic perspectives on diachronic environmental ethics. A key argument is that recognition of the multi-directional dynamics of human: environment entanglement, drawing on developments within religious studies, the environmental and medical humanities, as well as environmental health discourse, is crucial for achieving more widespread engagement with environmental activism, and movement towards long term behavioural changes that ultimately reduce global suffering and increase environmental, economic and human wellbeing.
Anthropology of This Century
Anthropological theory at the end of the world (as we know it)2019 •
I take as my launchpad Bruno Latour’s thesis in chapter 6 of his recent book, Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime, which attributes Western climate scepticism to a deeply embedded philosophical outlook in which Moderns see themselves as living after the apocalypse – that is, the final revelation of modernity – and cannot quite process the idea that another (ecological) apocalypse is unfolding. I open with Latour not in order to present his thesis as my only subject of concern, but because it offers a helpful point of departure (and return) for considering complementary and contrasting ethnographic evidence. In Part 2 of what follows, I will argue that postcolonial and feminist theories are not secondary but central to an adequate understanding of the Anthropocene, and in Part 3 I explore how these are synthesised in Elizabeth Povinelli’s work on geontologies. My conclusion here is that some of the literature on the Anthropocene helpfully points to the precarious future of nation state politics. I hope that my discussion will highlight the opportunities anthropology has to help us face the Anthropocene constructively, with whatever little hope we may have left.
2015 •
Visions of catastrophe proliferate: we are surrounded by prophecies of the end times. This module takes an anthropological approach to eschatology-the study of the final events in the history of the world. It does so at a time when narratives of apocalypse are assuming great cultural significance: from the influence of Biblical visions of the end times in politics and popular culture, to the existential threat posed by global climate change. Critically engaging with classic anthropological approaches to millenarianism, the module places the anthropology of religion and environmental anthropology in dialogue. It does so by examining the apocalypse through the lens of contemporary Christian culture and lives, but also by tracing the patterns of narratives of the end-times through to secular visions. Here, we confront the growing recognition that we are living in-and implicated in-the sixth mass extinction, an event which places human presence in the context of the deep time of geology; but we also reflect on the possibilities for life at such a point in history beyond fatalistic diagnoses of doom.
Bioarchaeologists Speak Out: Deep Time Perspectives on Contemporary Issues
2018_Changing the Climate: Bioarchaeology Responds to Deterministic Thinking About Human-Environmental Interactions in the Past2018 •
As members of the global public become increasingly concerned about climate change, popular presses promote " scientific " narratives about the success or failure of past societies (e.g., Diamond 2011), human security literature perpetuates a narrative that violence is a " natural " outcome of increased competition in such circumstances (e.g., Barnett 2007), and generally, neither the public nor policy-makers are exposed to information about the topic of human-environmental interactions from those who know it best, anthropologists. This chapter explores the development of the human security field and the development of pseudo-evolutionary, ahistorical, adaptationist narratives about human behavior in the face of changing climates. The chapter also demonstrates implications of these narratives as they have been adopted by policy-makers at the EPA and DoD. Finally, the chapter provides an example of a bioarchaeological approach to research on human-environmental relations in the past and the complex dynamics that shaped the human experience of climate, social, and economic changes in the first and second millennium BCE in South Asia. Human security literature is the basis for planning for a warmer world. Anthropological perspectives are the necessary antidote to narratives of competition and violence that promote a governmental agenda to prevail at all costs.
Climate change and climate catastrophes, exacerbated by capitalist growth, are creating new forms of politics, different socio-cultural engagements and new philosophical thinking. Multispecies feminist theorist Donna Haraway has recently asked us to engage the concept of the Anthropocene critically, link it to the Capitalocene, and make kin with non-human species in order to have a future that more can co-exist. What is the role of the humanities in the theorization of global environmental crisis and damage? How do social cultural theories respond to the age of Anthropocene in which human activities have radically changed the meanings of the earth, human and non-human existences? How do we advance postcolonial critiques in Asia where limited natural resource and massive cheap labor is mobilized to manufacture for consumers all over the world? How do humanities scholars respond to the post-Fukushima era when climate refugees are protagonists, animals and plants interact with new technologies, while waste and pollution are fact of everyday lives? This workshop invites young and excellent researchers from the emerging field of environmental humanities to respond to entanglements among capital, ecology, human and non-human, waste, and cultural productions. Keynote Speaker
Libertarian Autobiographies: Moving Toward Freedom in Today’s World
From Leftism to Liberty, a Personal Journey2023 •
RESEARCH ETHICS: Journal of Multidisciplinary Research
Land, Caste and Property: A Theoretical and Historical Review2023 •
Arqueoantropológicas, Año 4, No. 4: 11-53. Cochabamba.
100 años de investigación arqueológica en los Llanos de Mojos [H. Prümers & C. Jaimes Betancourt; 2014]2023 •
2015 •
2012 •
Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación
Bauhaus en perspectiva: la evolución y persistencia de una idea. Una mirada al espacio doméstico moderno2020 •
Journal of Ophthalmology & Clinical Research
Epithelioid Choroidal Melanoma in a Middle-Aged Filipino: A Case Report2021 •
The Journal of Neuroscience
Shaping Memory Accuracy by Left Prefrontal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation2014 •
International Journal of Enviornment and Climate Change
Physiological Changes in Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) by Postharvest Application with Hexanal Containing Aqueous Formulations2023 •
1999 •
International journal of pharmaceutical quality assurance
Effect of NSAIDs in the Tooth Movement in Orthodontic Treatment2024 •