Description
What is the role of religion in shaping interactions and relations between the human and nonhuman in nature? Why are Muslim and Christian organizations generally not a potent force in Southeast Asian environmental movements? The Camphor Tree and the Elephant brings these questions into the history of ecological change in the region, centering the roles of religion and colonialism in shaping the Anthropocene--"the human epoch."
Historian Faizah Zakaria traces the conversion of the Batak people in upland Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula to Islam and Christianity during the long nineteenth century. She finds that the process helped shape social structures that voided the natural world of enchantment, ushered in a cash economy, and placed the power to remake local landscapes into the hands of a distant elite. Using a wide array of sources such as family histories, prayer manuscripts, and folktales in tandem with colonial and ethnographic archives, Zakaria brings everyday religion and its far-flung implications into our understanding of the environmental history of the modern world.
Author: Faizah Zakaria
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 02/07/2023
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.91lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.63d
ISBN13: 9780295751184
ISBN10: 0295751185
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | Asian Studies
- Nature | Ecosystems & Habitats | Forests & Rainforests
- History | Asia | Southeast Asia
About the Author
Faizah Zakaria is assistant professor in the Departments of Southeast Asian Studies and Malay Studies at the National University of Singapore. She is coeditor of Fatwas of Singapore: Science, Medicine and Health.