Panel: INJUSTICE & SOCIAL TRANSFIGURATION IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: AN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE



303.3 - CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL ENGAGEMENT WITH ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

AUTHORS:
Kostarelos F. (Governors State University ~ Chicago ~ United States of America)
Text:
I base this presentation on long-standing ethnographic research I have conducted among Orthodox Christians in rural Greece and Greek Orthodox Christians in the United States with a view to understanding how religious beliefs and practices encoded in these church bodies relate to socio-economic issues including social inequalities, poverty, racial discrimination, migration, gender discrimination, global warming and related environmental events that are dislocating people and entire settlements in Greece and the United States. In recent years, I have presented the concept of the Anthropocene, first framed by geoscientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in the Global Change Newsletter in 2000, along with The American Anthropological Association application of Anthropocene in the Statement on Humanity and Climate Change in 2015, that seeks to integrate geologic findings with ethnographic research on local and global inequalities and dislocations resulting from neo-liberal economic forces and global warming to Orthodox Christian clergy, laity, and theologians. In this presentation, I will review my readings of Orthodox theological texts in the context of my research on Orthodox church institutions and lived Orthodox Christian experiences with a focus on climate issues.