Panel: "BODIES THAT MATTER" (JUDITH BUTLER, 2011). THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON PRESENT AND FUTURES OF GENDERED BODIES



227.3 - THE CATEGORY OF THE BODY IN THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY ECOFEMINIST CRITICISM

AUTHORS:
Martínez Cano S. (Universidad Complutense Madrid ~ Madrid ~ Spain)
Text:
Ecofeminism situates human consciousness of existence in the interdependent relationship with the rest of creation. That way, it challenges the historical and European way of approaching the identity of the person, which is centred on the awareness of taking charge of reality (X. Zubiri). For ecofeminism, the category of the bodily would be the starting point for understanding humanity, starting (first) from the experience of one's own corporeality in the world around us (women and men), and from this (second) articulating a discourse that expresses the experience in different possible languages, such as rational discourse, daily life, poetry, art, action-ethics, etc. (I. Gebara). In this paper we will delve into how ecofeminist theology challenges theological anthropology and builds through bodily experience the construction of a new discourse of the human being that is more incarnated, more inclusive and in harmony with creation. The bodily experience and its discursive diversity distances itself from the binomials soul/body and man/nature and man/woman, and calls for an understanding of humanity as a sentient and thinking corporeality that embraces the life of creation through its care. From this perspective it is possible to rethink human identity in relation to God as a historical humanity (situated, vulnerable and diverse bodies) that find in God the welcome of the Trinitarian relational movement. Therefore, the human being is imago trinitatis in that he or she is a body that freely loves other incarnate lives and reveals itself capable of allowing itself to be loved and committed to the care of these lives when it commits itself to an equitable eco-justice.