Volume 03: Issue 01, 2021

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https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/113230

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Browsing Volume 03: Issue 01, 2021 by Subject "ecofear"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    An analysis of reverential ecofear in Theyyam: A ritualistic performance of North-Malabar
    (In Search of Fearlessness Research Intitute & The Fearology Institute, 2021-04-08) Rithwik Sankar A.
    Theyyam is a ritualistic performance in the North-Malabar region of Kerala, India. It carries ritualistic elements such as worship and penance along with the convergence of various forms like dance, painting, and music. The legendary and mythical characters in Theyyam performances are acted out by artistically skilled men of the exploited sections of the society including Malayas, Pulayas, Vannans, Velans, and Thiyyas. Though the performance of Theyyam by the subaltern communities signals the fearless resistance against the prevailing hierarchies and hegemonies in the society, it also has been used by the system as an ideological means to contain the oppositions or resistance from its subjects. The ritualistic expression of fear and respect forms the basis of each Theyyam performances. Often, people's fear of nature is ritualistically manifested through Theyyam performance. People's fear is concerned mainly with the matters of diseases, reproduction and yield in agriculture. These concerns are well articulated in different folk narratives including Kothamooriyattam, Kaliyanattam and the Theyyam performances including Muchilottu Bagavathi and Pulimaranja Thondachan Theyyam. The knowledge about nature acquired through a keen observation of natural cycles and other changes in nature by the ancient people is manifested in these ritual performances. This paper critically examines the influence of fear, using the concepts of ecofear and ecophobia, in the formulation of goddesses in Theyyam worship and the connection between the paraphernalia of Theyyam with nature. It examines the case of Theyyottukavu, a sacred grove in the district of Kannur in the light of the concept of ecofear. The paper also, analyses Theyyam and certain Theyyam myths by incorporating the theories of fear studies formulated by the fearologist R. M. Fisher.
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    Ecofear as visible and invisible: Conceptual underpinnings of The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer
    (In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2021-04-08) Baindur, Meera
    Human response to ecophobia and ecofear have been mitigated through belief in science and technology that are supposed to establish knowledge and control over nature. This essay will look at the relationship between nature and fear through an ecocritical reading of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy (2014) titled Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance. The first novel Annihilation is written from a biologist's view of an ecozone known as Area X in which there is a continuous situation of unknowability and invisibility of the environment that is subjected to study and control in the plot. The second novel carries ecophobia into the very organisation 'Southern Reach' that is investigating Area X. Here the encounter between the protagonists and Area X is mediated by data and the politics of human beings working together, yet keeping secrets from each other. In the third novel, the climax reveals the intelligence that is Area X, yet at the same time masking its intention and the future of human beings and their interests. While analysing the different types of ecofear, I posit that it is possible for a certain kind of literature to evoke a horror of ourselves and transform ecophobia within our attitudes. This essay concludes with the significance of self-abnegation and a collapse of human arrogance at both the epistemic level and identity-separateness for being with nature. I posit that this kind of novel, a sort of ecologically inspired fiction, renders the human interest invisible, against bio-interest resulting in a foundational shift in our attitude to nature and ourselves.
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    Navigating women scientist &unnatural selection through :The Nest (1987) and Splice (2006)
    (In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2021-04-08) Deater, Tiffany
    The Nest (1987) and Splice (2006) use fear as a method of generating anxiety, helpless, and even hostility towards its subject_the female scientists. This character stereotype is the source of treacherous and destructive acts that jeopardize the future of the environment and the human race. These female villains have desires deemed unnatural by traditional conservative society, are destructive to the environment, and operate outside the norm of both social and biological ecology. This paper argues that the stereotype of female scientist as portrayed in The Nest and Splice is destructive to the cultural progress of women. In addition both films assert that women scientists are at fault for changes in the natural world and thus have a negative effect on humanities ability to survive. Ultimately humanity will fail to exterminate the unnatural species we have created and we must adjust and accommodate for a new existence.
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    Trepidation of change: Analysing the somatic de-recognition of Mother Nature in Gopinath Mohanty's Paraja
    (In Search of Fearlessness Research Intitute & The Fearology Institute, 2021-04-08) Swayamsidha, Sadhana
    Gopinath Mohanty's novel Paraja depicts the deracination of the Paraja tribal community of Odisha and the simultaneous disintegration of their indigenous percipience of ecological maintenance. The conceptualization of ecofear is not an exclusive fear of de-recognition with the natural environment for the Paraja tribe; on the contrary, it is a distinct sense of synesthetic fear that is comprehensive and interlinked with the fear of being catapulted into a transformed nature that propagates a feeling of alienation and estrangement. This paper will articulate how the synesthetic fear conceives the loss of the quintessence of indigenous life at the heart of nature. With the advent of the new modes of perceiving land in terms of its utilitarian use, there has been a considerable reduction in the subtle experiences of sensing the land and identifying with it on a symbolic level. This evolving relationship with land with humans is of prime concern in the context of its consequences in the 21st century. This paper will attempt to explore how somatic de-recognition with place forms the locus of indigenous ecofear. Somatic de-recognition refers to the inability to experience a sense of belongingness with place of habitation that holds within it the history of ancestors. This paper will also explicate the indigenous perspective on the trajectory of environmental adjustments, which they fear would lead to the gradual degeneration of human beings.