From Smith, Goodhardt, Manning and Markoff (eds).

(2017)
Social Movements and World System Transformation. Routledge.

10
SPIRITUALITY AND
GLOBAL CAPITALISM
Contested perspectives1

Peter (Jay) Smith

In recent decades “spirituality” has become a popular word, proliferating in a

wide variety of contexts. According to Heelas:

Spirituality has run riot, on a nigh global compass. … A radical shift appears
to be under way, one from religious tradition where spirituality is ignored or
marginalized to being emphasized within religious traditions and beyond.
(2012: 3)

Beyond, indeed. Today we see a vast literature among leading academic dis-
ciplines linking spirituality to almost all aspects of existence: health, nursing,
business management, medicine, organizations, and education, to note a few
examples. Spirituality is also becoming an important factor in social mobilization
and activist movements. Unfortunately, however, according to Hutchison, ana-
lysis of “the role of spirituality in framing social movements is almost non-
existent” (2012: 116; see also Cormie, this volume). Poonamallee echoes these
sentiments, stating that “spirituality as a source of capacity for radical change has
gone unacknowledged in social science literature.” Indeed, claims Poonamallee,
“in the Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (Snow et al. 2004) spirituality does
not even appear in the subject index” (2011: 243).
Spirituality, thus, represents a void in the study of social movement activism.
This is somewhat surprising given that the respective leaders of the Indian
Independence Movement and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States,
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. were embodiments of spiritual
leadership.2 Today, much social movement activism centers on resistance to
neoliberal globalization, defined as a theoretical and elite-political project that
“proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual
 Spirituality and global capitalism 213

entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework character-

ized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade” (Harvey
2005: 2). Some describe neoliberalism as a form of market fundamentalism
operating on a global scale that puts an emphasis on the market above all else
in society, a market dominated by large financial interests and corporations.
Yet, in reality, despite its neglect in the social science literature, spirituality has
been an important factor both in support of and opposition to neoliberal globa-
lization. In terms of the former, work on spirituality in support of global capital-
ism tends not to be done by social scientists. In terms of the latter, in the analysis
of opposition to neoliberal globalization, spirituality is seldom referred to directly
by social scientists. Indirectly, however, social scientists (and also philosophers,
theologians, and historians)3 have become interested in Indigenous spirituality and
Indigenous “cosmovisions” of co-existence with nature and their implications for
the environment and capitalism.
While there are indications of the growing links between Indigenous and
environmental movements, with their rejection of anthropocentrism (the
human-centered view of the world) in favor of biocentrism (the belief that
the rights and needs of humans are not more important than the lives of other
living beings), what is less evident is the question of whether or not Indigenous
cosmovisions and concepts of spirituality are becoming part of the discourse and
worldview of non-indigenous movements. That is, are Indigenous and non-
indigenous movements, particularly environmental, converging beyond com-
monalities of interest to a convergence of worldviews and values? If so, it would
suggest that spirituality is becoming an animating force in social movements
opposed to neoliberal globalization. This should not necessarily be a surprise.
Markoff, for example, argues, that “varying combinations of pressures from social
movements of the excluded and initiatives of reforming elites have tended to
make lesser powers on the world stage the epicenters of democratic creativity”4
(2003: 107).
In exploring this notion, this chapter will first address the question of why the
turn to spirituality more generally, addressing as well what spirituality means. In
this respect spirituality is clearly a contested concept. As such, it is important to
discuss how spirituality, variously interpreted, can be put at the service of
global capitalism as well as opposing it. The emphasis in this chapter is on the
latter, and it examines both non-indigenous and Indigenous spirituality. The
chapter then discusses the growing cooperation between environmental move-
ments and Indigenous movements, with Indigenous movements playing an
increasingly important role in the climate justice movement. The paper stres-
ses, in particular, instances of this cooperation and examines the positions and
statements of non-indigenous actors to see if they are adopting the discourse and
values of Indigenous movements in terms of how they frame issues and offer
solutions.
214 The politics of making life possible: towards buen vivir?

What is spirituality?
Answering this question is no easy task. Spirituality, like religion, is difficult to
define. According to Kourie “the persistent interest in the phenomenon of spiri-
tuality is all the more remarkable given the fact there is no clear, unequivocal
definition of the concept that is acceptable to all interested in the field” (2006:
22). Because its vagueness leads to confusion, Kourie argues, “it will be helpful to
have a working definition that will encapsulate the essence of spirituality, elim-
inate misconceptions surrounding the term and facilitate discussion” (2006: 22).
Carrette and King (2005) agree with Kourie that spirituality is difficult to
define. However, they argue that spirituality is a historical, social construct,
one that is contested. As a result “searching for an overarching definition of
‘spirituality’ only ends up missing the specific historical location of each use of the
term” (2005: 3). Furthermore, argue Carrette and King, there are advantages to
its vagueness in the sense that “its vagueness and ambiguity allows it to mask the
underlying ideologies that it is used to represent” (2005: 3). The claim that
spirituality can mask underlying ideologies suggests its relationship to power.
The fact that spirituality is socially constructed means that its meanings have
shifted over time. One interpretation is that whereas religion is associated with
organized and institutionalized beliefs and practices (Taylor and Chatters 2010),
spirituality refers to qualities and aspirations of individuals and to the human
dimension of one’s spirit.5 For some spirituality represents a search for the trans-
cendence of the self associated with “piety” and “otherworldliness,” implying a
duality between matter and spirit. Thus the term becomes associated with those
individuals with special qualities such as ministers, monks, and nuns. Spirituality
viewed this way is a not a relevant part of most people’s lives.
Today, however, spirituality is seen to be relevant to the wider population in
the sense that it refers to one’s personal growth, a search for the “ultimate values”
and sense of belonging that gives meaning to our lives. This search can be reli-
gious or non-religious. Thus one can be “spiritual without being religious.”
According to Kappen, spirituality refers to “the manner in which humans trans-
cend themselves and reach out to the ultimate possibilities of their existence”
(1994: 33, in Kourie 2006).
Spirituality in this sense is distinctly individualistic and private, analogous to the
individualization and privatization that occurred to religion with the rise of
modernity and capitalism. According to Carrette and King, it is the very emphasis
on individualism and one’s private life that makes spirituality, like religion, sus-
ceptible to being privatized and put at the service of capitalism, in this case,
neoliberal globalization. They argue that it is precisely “the individualization of
the spiritual … which has allowed consumerist and capitalist spiritualities to
emerge in the late twentieth century” (2005: 4).
These consumerist and capitalist spiritualities are most evident in the spirituality
associated with “Prosperity Religion.”6 According to Woodhead and Heelas:
 Spirituality and global capitalism 215

Prosperity religion, of course, is bound up with what would appear to be an

ever-more significant feature of modern times: the growth of consumer
culture and the associated right term – of people intent on satisfying their
consumeristically driven desires. It could well be the case that prosperity
religion is (characteristically) about the sacralisation of utilitarian
individualism.
(2000: 174)

Spirituality contested
The perspective sketched above indicates that spirituality possesses qualities such
as individualism and an implicit liberalism that lend it to the accommodation, if
not support, of neoliberal capitalism. Moreover, spirituality as it appears above
clearly leans towards an anthropocentric view of the world, in the sense that the
emphasis is on individual humans and their quests. It is precisely this anthro-
pocentrism that divides this view of spirituality from more radical, critical views
that are more biocentric in nature. These critical views of spirituality reject the
historical emphasis religions have put on the transcendent domain, emphasizing
instead that God or the Divine is not a separate entity but bound up with our-
selves, the Earth, nature and the cosmos (Lynch 2007). On this view, moreover,
the Earth is sacred. Patriarchal religions are rejected in favor of a maternal prin-
ciple in which we speak of the sacredness of Mother Earth. In addition, there is
an acknowledged need for a spirituality that recognizes the imperative of the
existing ecological crisis we now face. Finally, this view rejects the dualisms of
modernity and the idea that it offers a panacea for our future, a point underscored
by Conway in this volume. No longer is the natural world to be exploited for
human benefit.
Gordon Lynch (2007), for example, writes about the rise of a progressive
spirituality, claiming that:

Such a perspective rejects the anthropocentrism and pragmatic environmental

concern for a deeper spiritual vision of the fundamentally interconnected
nature of all reality in the proper understanding of the human place within
this wider story. The divine is no longer placed in the realm above and
beyond the natural world, nor located simply in the person of Jesus, but is
spread throughout the emerging cosmos. Creation spirituality, then, truly
honors the soil as a divine locus.
(2007: 37)

Kourie agrees that the “new” spirituality arising particularly in Christianity, but
(as Cormie’s chapter demonstrates) not exclusively so, stresses the inter-
connectedness of all life both non-human and human. Like Lynch she argues that
this new spirituality “affirms the notion of panentheism in which God is seen to be
216 The politics of making life possible: towards buen vivir?

in all things and all things in God” (2006: 31). Kourie also believes that this
spirituality rejects dualistic thinking, averring that the “new wave of spirituality”
is postmodern (2006: 29). Lynch is careful, though, to stress that “the postmodern
here should not be one in which all meta narratives collapse, but in which a new
meta narrative – the story of the universe – comes to the fore” (2007: 32).
It is Berry, in particular, who emphasizes the spirituality of the Earth which, he
argues, has “an intrinsic spirituality quality” and that what is needed is “a new
spiritual, even mystical communion with Earth” (2009: 27). The Earth, more-
over, has a maternal principle and it is important to recognize “how significant
the title Mother Earth is.” Furthermore, “Earth consciousness and woman
consciousness go together.” In his view, “the most basic issue of our times is
human-Earth relations.”
Others do not go so far as to stress that the location of the sacred and spiri-
tuality is in Mother Earth per se. The American Buddhist monk, Bhikkhu Bodhi,
for example, does not reject spirituality in terms of the transcendental domain,
contemplative spirituality. Rather, he argues that “a spirituality that privileges the
transcendent and devalues the social and natural domains, or sees them at best as
stepping stones to realization, is inadequate to our current needs” (2013). What is
required, he argues, is “an integral type of spirituality that can bridge the three
domains of life,” the transcendent, the social domain of our daily lives including
our political, social, and economic institutions, and the natural domain where
“we must learn to look at the universe with wonder, awe, and reverence, treat
other living beings with care and kindness, and ensure that nature preserves its
self-regenerating capacities.”
The rejection of the notion that the Earth is here to be used as raw material to
be exploited for human benefit means that issues of spirituality are closely asso-
ciated with environmental issues and concerns. According to Gottlieb, “envir-
onmentalism tends to have a spiritual dimension which other liberal or leftist
political movements lack.” Moreover, “since spirituality has been a key part of
the environmental movement from its inception to the present, it makes envir-
onmental politics particularly fertile ground for an alliance with religion”
(Gottlieb 2006: 14, 16).

The growing centrality of Indigenous spirituality

In recent decades, alternative views of spirituality as discussed immediately above
are particularly evident in the growing ideological influence of Indigenous
movements worldwide. This section of the paper discusses the rise of Indigenous
movements, their ability to communicate across borders, and their work with
other non-indigenous transnational social movements. In particular they have
worked closely with environmental movements within what now is referred to as
the climate justice movement. A critical question that arises here is, what is the
nature of the growing alignment of these two movements? Is this connection
 Spirituality and global capitalism 217

primarily strategic, based on a commonality of interests? Of common values? Is

there evidence of diffusion of Indigenous spirituality and cosmovisions(s) to
non-indigenous movements?
The rise of Indigenous movements and their engagement in transnational
political activism has been associated with the rise of neoliberalism beginning in
the 1970s. Neoliberalism encourages mass consumption and the opening of
national markets and the removal of barriers to international investment and
trade. Mass consumption, in turn, requires finding and exploiting natural resour-
ces. As Naomi Klein argues “the fundamental imperative at the heart of our
economic model is grow or die” (2014: 21). According to Coates:

The imperatives of the industrial world, which needed energy, minerals,

wood and pulp … drove nations to move aggressively into remote regions.
In very few instances … did the national governments take the concerns and
needs of indigenous peoples very seriously.
(2004: 216)

Increasingly there were movements of resistance. Brysk (2000) and Ulloa (2003)
trace the rise of national and transnational Indigenous movements in Latin
America in the 1980s and 1990s. Powless offers a more global perspective (2012).
Indeed, one can say Indigenous resistance has had a notable impact with the
global justice movement (GJM). The 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico
reverberated among activists around the world. In 1994, the Zapatista National
Liberation Army, composed of primarily Maya Indigenous people, rebelled
against the imposition of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
in Mexico (Smith et al. 2014). The Zapatistas, who reject dualistic thinking,
called for alternatives to neoliberal globalization. The words of one of their spo-
kepersons, Subcommandante Marcos, inspired activists. Marcos “observed that
neoliberalism’s need to continually expand and conquer reduces diversity in both
society and nature” (Smith et al. 2014: 21). The Zapatista emphasis on hor-
izontality, the making of decisions by grassroots, popular participation has become
a hallmark of the GJM and groups such as Occupy Wall Street.
What Castells says about the formation of the collective identity of the Zapa-
tistas is applicable to other Indigenous movements. He discusses three forms of
identity; (1) legitimizing identity, (2) resistance identity, and (3) project identity
(2010 [1997]). Legitimizing identity is often extended by the state in terms of, for
example, the recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples by, for example,
clauses in state constitutions. Resistance identity is the creation of identity
through political struggles. Finally, in project identity, new identities, in this case
Indigenous identities, are built “based on ethnic traditions and in relation to
transnational discourses of ecology, cultural diversity, alternative development and
human rights that are different from the national identity” (Ulloa 2003: 5). As a
result, Indigenous movements are creating spaces to propose, challenge, and
218 The politics of making life possible: towards buen vivir?

perhaps transform existing systems – political, economic, social, and cultural –

built upon exploitation and colonial practices.
In the case of the Zapatistas, for example, their cosmologies or spiritualities are
similarly disruptive of the dualities characterizing modernity. The Zapatistas
reject, for instance, the human–nature duality and view the Earth as sacred, a
living entity of which humans are a part in a great interrelated web of life and
belonging. This relational thought extends to a range of dualisms, including
man–woman and God–Goddesses (Sylvia Marcos 2013).
Prior to the Zapatista uprising, Indigenous and environmental groups had been
creating alliances. Ever since the 1970s, Ulloa argues, “there has been a “natural
alliance” between the environment and indigenous peoples” (2003: 6). In part this
is due to a growing regard of non-indigenous movements for the cosmological
visions of Indigenous peoples. This is particularly evident in the now much-studied
concept of the Indigenous peoples of the Andes, buen vivir – literally, the good life.
Buen vivir is a heterogeneous concept and has a number of names among the
Indigenous peoples of South America. The Quechua people call it sumackawsay,
the Peruvian Amazonians kametsa asaiki, the Aymara sumaqamana, and the Guarani
nandereko. While it can be translated in different ways they all share a concept of
an ideal life (Alcoreza 2013). Buen vivir rejects anthropocentrism in favor of bio-
centrism. It also rejects the duality of humans and nature. According to Alcoreza:

The concept does not split mankind from Nature and has an inseparable
interconnection between the material life of reproduction and the produc-
tion of social and spiritual life. Men and women, together with nature, are
part of the Mother Earth and there is a communion and dialogue between
them mediated by rituals in which Nature is understood as a sacred being.
(Alcoreza 2013: 145)

This cosmocentric vision has a number of consequences. First, as Cormie notes in

this volume, spirituality inspires political struggles as Indigenous “spiritual tradi-
tions … do not distinguish between ‘spiritual’ and ‘political’ concerns” (see also
Figueroa-Helland and Raghu this volume). Second, if Nature is sacred then
Nature has an independent standing from profit and exploitation. We should
only take from Nature what we need to live. Rather than emphasize human
rights, which places the human being in the center (an anthropocentric view),
buen vivir emphasizes the rights of Nature, which places Nature in the center,
including human beings (Acosta 2009: 198). These rights do not mean Nature
should be pristine and untouched, but rather we should only take what we need
and can use while at the same time ensuring “the persistence and survival of
species and their ecosystems” (Acosta 2009: 198).
Buen vivir thus breaks from modernity in a number of ways, not only in terms
of its opposition to anthropocentrism but also in its rejection of the economic
growth model and capitalism. It is not only post-capitalist but also post-socialist
 Spirituality and global capitalism 219

and sees the necessity of going beyond modernity to what Cormie (this volume)
refers to as a “transmodern and transcapitalist future.” According to Gudynas:

Modernity is a particular ontology that in the last centuries determined the

division between nature and society, a colonial distinction between modern
and non-modern indigenous peoples, the myth of progress as a unidirectional
linear path, and a strong confidence on Cartesian science.
(2011: 447)

Rejected as well, of course, is the notion of patriarchy. Buen vivir recognizes that
modernity is an exhausted project and that alternative worldviews are necessary.7
In Castells’s terms, what is being offered is a project identity.
Buen vivir, it should be noted, is not a static concept but one that responds to
contemporary challenges (Gudynas 2011). Furthermore, it is not a concept parti-
cular to South America. Analogous principles exist in Indigenous cultures
worldwide (Focus on the Global South 2013). The Indigenous peoples of the
Phillipines use a variety of native terms that equate to the “simple life,” as do the
Adivasis of India (see Figueroa-Helland and Raghu, this volume). In Africa
“Ubuntu” has similar connotations to buen vivir. Ubuntu means “humanness” or
“humanity” in Zulu (Benedetta and Margherita 2013: 3). According to Nuss-
baum, Ubuntu “speaks to our interconnectness, our common humanity, and the
responsibility to each other that flows from our deeply felt connection” (2003, as
quoted in Benedetta and Margherita 2013: 3). Words with similar meaning can
be found in languages throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In Canada, former chief
George Poitras, of Fort Chipewayan in northern Alberta, notes that the Cree
term for the same concept as buen vivir is miyo matsuwin (Dillon 2014: 4).

The diffusion of buen vivir

There are clear signs that the values associated with buen vivir are now becoming
part of the discourse and value system of non-Indigenous organizations and
movements, in a way consistent with the suggestion made by Figueroa-Helland
and Raghu in this volume, thus complementing their analysis. This is known as
the process of diffusion. Diffusion refers to the incorporation of some idea, prac-
tice or item by an individual, group or movement (Wood 2011: 306). Diffusion
requires specific means of communication and an opportunity to deliberate on
the worth of the idea. As Jackie Smith notes, crises, economic and environmental,
are creating spaces for Indigenous ideas and values to emerge as sources of
inspiration and discussion (2014). In reference to buen vivir, two opportunities for
discussion and diffusion stand out. The first is the World Social Forum. As
Cormie (this volume) notes, “In [WSF] Belém (2009) indigenous peoples along
with their spiritualities and cosmovisions were central.” According to Smith
(2014), WSF Belém (2009) exposed a wider public to the discussion of
220 The politics of making life possible: towards buen vivir?

Indigenous ideas and values. A second opportunity came in 2010 when the
Bolivian government, in the wake of the failure in 2009 of the Copenhagen
Conference on climate change, invited civil society organizations to Bolivia.
Approximately 30,000 people attended what became known as the World Peo-
ple’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. They
debated proposals on recovering and integrating Indigenous practices and beliefs
in the form of buen vivir, producing the Universal Declaration of the Rights of
Mother Earth.
The idea of buen vivir and the Rights of Mother Earth spread rapidly from that
point, becoming adopted by a variety of organizations. For example, during
the conference the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature was formed by 18
organizations from around the world. Since that time over 125 organizations
have signed up to the Founding Principles of the Alliance, which rejects
anthropocentrism:

The primary premise of the Alliance is that in order to insure an envir-

onmentally sustainable future, humans must reorient themselves from an
exploitative and ultimately self-destructive relationship with nature, to one
that honors the deep interrelation of all life and contributes to the health and
integrity of the natural environment. An essential step in achieving this is to
create a system of jurisprudence that sees and treats nature as a fundamental,
rights bearing entity and not as mere property to be exploited at will.
Breaking out of the human-centered limitations of our current legal systems
by recognizing, respecting and enforcing Rights of Nature is one of the most
transformative and highly leveraged actions that humanity can take to create
a sustainable future for all.
(2015, http://therightsofnature.org/fundamental-principles/)

In the remainder of this section I offer three examples of networks and organi-
zations exemplifying the spread of ideas about buen vivir and Rights of Mother
Earth. These are: (1) the transnational movement protesting the expansion of the
development of the Athabasca Tar Sands in Northern Alberta and the building of
pipelines for its delivery to market, (2) the Health of Mother Earth Foundation
(HOMEF) in Nigeria, and (3) Focus on the Global South in Southeast Asia. With
the exception of the UK Tar Sands Network in the first movement noted, all
three are characterized by what Carroll describes as transnational alternative policy
groups (TAPGs), groups “that, in dialogue with transnational publics and move-
ments, produce evidence-based knowledge which critiques hegemonic practices
and perspectives and promotes alternatives” (2015: 1, 2) All three are also united
in the struggle against climate change, where marginalized peoples, including
Indigenous peoples, are particularly affected (Tokar 2013).
Climate change has become the main focus of environmental activism.
According to Naomi Klein, “our economic system and our planetary systems are
 Spirituality and global capitalism 221

at war” with climate change representing “a battle between capitalism and the
climate” (2014: 21–22). Furthermore, Klein argues, we must reject the con-
servative view that humankind has the right to subdue the Earth and establish
mastery over Nature. Opposition to climate change has been growing and coa-
lescing around large-scale extraction of mineral resources in Indigenous areas of
the world, in particular, oil. According to Tokar, “one promising development is
the increasingly unified opposition to the increasing pace of oil extraction from
western Canada’s Alberta tar sands, which has widely been described as the most
climate-damaging project in the world” (Tokar 2013: 9).

The battle against the tar sands

Opposition to the extraction and shipment of bitumen from the Alberta tar sands
has transnational dimensions. There have been a variety of fronts to this opposi-
tion, including: (1) the Keystone XL pipeline which would take bitumen from
Alberta down to the Gulf Coast of the United States to be processed, (2) the
Northern Gateway pipeline which would take product from Alberta to the west
coast of British Columbia, and (3) Europe, in terms of the battle over public
opinion, divestment campaigns against oil corporations, and decisions of the
European Union over fuel quality emission standards. This section focuses on the
third front, Europe. The first, the Keystone XL pipeline, has encountered such
strong resistance that the Obama administration decided to reject the application
from TransCanada, the parent company, although a new U.S. administration
could reverse that decision. As regards the second, the Northern Gateway pipe-
line, strong, particularly Indigenous, opposition means that in all likelihood the
proposal is dead in the water. In the European struggle, the movement includes a
number of key actors such as the UK Tar Sands Network, the Indigenous
Environmental Network (IEN) and the Council of Canadians (COC).
These and other organizations have worked closely with Canadian First
Nations people, primarily the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) to
make their case in Europe. Included in the collective action’s repertoire are
speaking tours, lobbying, and shareholder activism. For example, in 2011 several
organizations in the network facilitated a week-long speaking tour of England by
Beaver Lake Cree Nation youth from Alberta. Support for the action came from
a number of UK NGOs, including the UK Tar Sands Network. The purpose of
the latter is to campaign “in partnership with Indigenous communities affected by
the Tar Sands oil developments in Canada. We target governments, UK compa-
nies, banks and investors operating in the Alberta Tar Sands” (UK Tar Sands
Network 2015).
The purpose here is not to analyse this movement per se but to examine the
extent to which Indigenous spiritual values and cosmovisions are part of the dis-
course of this movement that includes non-indigenous actors.8 If one starts
answering this question by examining the site of the UK Tar Sands Network
222 The politics of making life possible: towards buen vivir?

(UKTSN), one would find very little evidence that this network espouses the
language of buen vivir and analogous language of the Chipewyan First Nation.
The “About” section of the UKTSN is silent in this regard. In its press releases
UKTSN eschews such language. What it does do, however, is feature members
of the ACFN speaking for themselves. For example, we find spokesperson Eriel
Deranger stating in opposition to Tar Sands expansion that “As Denesuline
people, it is our responsibility to protect our lands, our rights, and all that Mother
Earth provides for our people and … we will continue do just that” (2013).
The IEN is, of course, very different from UKTSN. The IEN has been at the
forefront of the battle against climate change (Tokar 2013). The IEN is a key
node linking the UK networks to First Nations peoples in Canada and civil
society organizations, and it focuses on environmental and economic justice issues
from an Indigenous perspective. Originating in the United States in 1990, it has
developed strong Canadian and global connections, particularly in Europe. IEN
strongly supports the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and makes many
references to the Rights of Mother Earth on its web pages. Executive director
Tom Goldtooth and Dr. Daniel Wildcat, for example, on the eve of the 2012
International Indigenous Conference, stated:

Our Mother Earth is the source of life. Water is her lifeblood. The well-
being of the natural environment predicts the physical, mental, emotional
and spiritual longevity of our Peoples. Mother Earth’s health and that of our
Indigenous Peoples are intrinsically intertwined. When our homelands are in
a state of good health our Peoples are truly healthy. This inseparable rela-
tionship must be respected for the sake of our future generations and for the
well-being of the Earth herself.
(Goldtooth and Wildcat 2012)

Goldtooth and Wildcat make it clear that IEN is part of a global movement
consisting of Indigenous and non-indigenous groups and people

committed to creating a system of jurisprudence that sees and treats nature

and Mother Earth as a fundamental, rights bearing entity. A paradigm, that is
based on Indigenous thought and philosophy needs to be forwarded which
grants equal rights to nature and which honors the interrelation in all life.
(Goldtooth and Wildcat 2012, emphasis original)

Given the above, it is easier to understand why the IEN would partner with the
COC. Over the years the COC has evolved from an organization fighting against
free trade agreements in the name of Canadian sovereignty into one engaged in
the broader GJM fighting for democracy against the encroachment of global
corporations, and finally into an organization with a focus on the environment
and climate change. The COC was a founding member of the Global Alliance
 Spirituality and global capitalism 223

for the Rights of Nature (GARN), and it national chairperson, Maude Barlow, is
also a member of the executive committee of GARN. Barlow and the COC
strongly support “the assertion that nature has rights” (Patterson 2014), and they
helped produce a book on the topic in 2011.
Barlow and the COC today articulate a distinctly biocentric vision of the
Earth, speaking about the importance of harmony with Nature, which Barlow
considers “a step toward recovering the ancient Latin American tradition of the
adoration of nature, which was seen by the Europeans as the sin of idolatry and
punished by torture and death.” In a speech before the United Nations in April
2015, Barlow stated:

Harmony with Nature would have us develop laws and policies that put the
protection of air, soil, water, wetlands, forests and other species at the centre
of all practices and policies and judge everything – from the way we grow
food and produce energy to global economic and trade policy – by their
impact on the natural world.

Barlow accepts the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth which,
she says, “recognizes that Earth is an indivisible, living community of interrelated
and interdependent beings with inherent rights” (Barlow 2015).

Health of Mother Earth Foundation

The Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in Nigeria is a recently cre-
ated ecological and advocacy organization with a focus on education, “whose
major objective is to overturn the current thought pattern which makes people in
Nigeria, in Africa especially, accept the neoliberal logic as the only way to do
things” (Bassey 2013: 1). HOMEF focuses its advocacy work on the broad
themes of fossil fuels (alternative energy, climate change, climate justice) and
hunger politics. Its advisory board consists of members from Africa, South America,
and Asia. HOMEF has rapidly risen to prominence primarily because of its
director, Nnimmo Bassey. Bassey is a widely known Nigerian activist, author, and
poet. Bassey co-founded Environmental Rights Action, also known as Friends of
the Earth Nigeria, and was the chair of Friends of the Earth International.
Bassey has been a strong supporter of buen vivir and the Rights of Mother
Earth, including during his tenure as chair of FOEI. For example, receiving in
this capacity the Right Livelihood Award (otherwise known as the alternative
Nobel Peace Prize) in 2010, Bassey stated that “just as we have rights, so does the
Earth” (2010). In terms of buen vivir he sees analogous concepts in Nigeria such as
Eti uwem. Eti uwem, explains Bassey,

is a concept in Ibibio, one of the several languages in Nigeria, which literally

means good life or good living. Within it is the idea of living in harmony with
224 The politics of making life possible: towards buen vivir?

nature and all peoples. It incorporates dignity, respect, rectitude, integrity,

solidarity and contentment. Within this concept are the key principles of
social justice, power relations and citizens’ and communal ownership and
control of local resources. It objects to speculation, exploitation, expropria-
tion and destructive activities and, very importantly, no monetary price can
be placed on life and nature.
(2013)

Bassey elaborates that eti uwem is similar to sumac kawsay of the Quechua people of
South America, which is sometimes translated as buen vivir.
Eti uwem, Bassey argues, is supportive of what he describes as “green democ-
racy,” by which he means “living well in a citizens-driven democracy” (2013).
Green democracy, says Bassey, must be placed in opposition to the “green
economy” which he sees as another name for green capitalism, resting as it does
on the premise “that the basis for nature can only be preserved when it is assigned
monetary value.” As such, “it fits well into neoliberal constructs” which promotes
growth, global trade and global production.
Among the activities of HOMEF is working closely with the Ogoni people.
The Ogoni are a small Indigenous group in the Niger Delta who have been battling
oil extraction and the Nigerian government for decades. The report of a work-
shop sponsored by HOMEF declares that “Ogoniland has become the poster
child for environmental problems in Nigeria, especially as a result of unscrupulous
extraction activities of multinational corporations” (Atake et al. 2014). The
struggle in the Niger Delta can be seen as a fight for “green democracy,” com-
munity and local control by the Ogoni of their lands and a clean, safe
environment.

Focus on the Global South

Focus on the Global South (Focus) is one the most prominent organizations in
the struggle against neoliberal globalization (Carroll 2015). It was established in 1995
“to challenge neoliberalism, militarism, and corporate-driven globalization while
strengthening just and equitable alternatives” (Focus on the Global South 2015b).
Its headquarters are in Bangkok, Thailand, but it also has offices in India and the
Philippines. Focus is a combination of think tank and advocacy organization,
critiquing and suggesting alternatives to neoliberal globalization.
As a transnational alternative policy group, a key function of Focus is to produce
counter-hegemonic knowledge. Focus, in this regard, centers on issues related to:
(1) trade and investment, (2) climate and the environment, (3) land, water and
forests, (4) social movements, and (5) deglobalization. Deglobalization is the primary
emphasis of Focus, which the group understands as “the transformation of a global
economy from one integrated around the needs of transnational corporations to
one integrated around the needs of peoples, nations, and communities” (2015).
 Spirituality and global capitalism 225

Given its orientation, it is not surprising that Focus would be interested in buen
vivir, which it views as an alternative paradigm to the economic growth model of
contemporary capitalism. In recent years Focus has been promoting buen vivir and
its similarity to like concepts among Indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia. This is largely
due to the fact that in 2012 Focus hired as its executive director Pablo Solón, from
Bolivia. Solón is known as a strong supporter of the Declaration on the Rights of
Mother Earth and was one of the key organizers of the World People’s Conference
on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010.
Soon after Solón arrived as its director in 2013, Focus began a series of
discussions with Indigenous peoples, civil society organizations, and social
movements to ascertain what could be learned from buen vivir. Among the issues
addressed was the similarity of buen vivir to other concepts practiced in Asia.
Another intention was to see “whether these concepts can provide feasible alter-
natives to the neoliberal model.” Soon after this, Focus published a report,
“From Latin America to Asia: Learning from Our Roots, a Conversation on
Vivir Bien” (2013). The report found that Indigenous peoples in India, Thai-
land, and the Philippines all employed concepts similar to buen vivir. It is clear that
the report perceived these visions as important contributors to counter-hegemonic
knowledge contesting neoliberal globalization. The report asked what can be
learned from these visions to help build our future. It then stated that:

We are currently in a systemic crisis, caused by the capitalist system, which

highlights the urgency of finding and creating alternative systems. One key
source is our roots located in the non-capitalist societies – experiences,
wisdom, knowledge, and practices that indigenous peoples all over the world
have preserved. We are not talking about a utopian return to a precolonial
past, but of the merging of lessons from our ancestors with those from today
to build something new. To enlighten the future, we need to learn from
things from the past that remain relevant in the present.
(Focus on the Global South 2013: 1)

The report acknowledges that where it has been instantiated in the constitutions
of Bolivia and Ecuador, the ideals and expectations of buen vivir have not been
met. Both countries have continued to emphasize extraction. That said, the
report stated that it was better “to strengthen the connection between vision and
practice” than to reject the concept itself.
Considered among the strong points of the concept was that it stressed har-
mony over growth, community over individualism, complementarity over com-
petition, and integrity over morality. By integrity was meant emphasizing “living
well” – to eat well, to care for Nature, to listen, to respect others. Moreover, the
report rejected the duality of spirituality and materiality, stating “for indigenous
peoples all over the world the spiritual world cannot be separated from the
material life” (2013: 7).
226 The politics of making life possible: towards buen vivir?

In 2014, Focus followed up on its report and meetings of the previous year
with another meeting consisting of more than 50 representatives from Indigenous
communities and civil society organizations from India, Thailand and the Phi-
lippines. The purpose of the meeting was to meet with Indigenous leader Blanca
Chancosa from Ecuador to have further discussions about buen vivir and related
visions in Asia as they relate to securing Indigenous peoples’ rights (Focus on the
Global South 2014). At the same time, Focus does not see buen vivir as related
only to the experiences of Indigenous peoples. Rather it sees the concept as part
of a counter-hegemonic struggle:

We must take advantage of the growing doubts around the economic

growth model to advance alternative paradigms such as buen vivir (living
well). The challenge is how to articulate such paradigms to make them viable
realities for the population at large.
(Focus on the Global South 2015a)

Today, Focus continues to put considerable emphasis on buen vivir, featuring it on

its home page.

Conclusion
This book has challenged its readers to “unthink” and interrogate “our ways of
knowing” so as to provide a different way of looking at the world and perhaps a
more effective challenge to the world-system and capitalist mode of production.
This chapter argues that Indigenous spirituality and buen vivir play an important role
in this regard, challenging as they do the basic precepts of the modern imaginary
which, to many, has contributed to our planetary and ecological crisis.
The modern imaginary (how we imagine the social whole), based on Euro-
centric assumptions, has, for example, framed our understanding and analysis of
community, capitalism and the state. It has done so to such an extent that, for
example, the traditional defense and critique of capitalism (liberalism and social-
ism) is articulated within the imaginary itself. It has been predicated on a series of
dichotomies and dualisms, for example the sacred versus the profane, and the
public versus the private sphere, among others.
A key contribution of buen vivir is that it serves to break down these distinc-
tions. A starting point is the notion of spirituality itself. Modernist thinking cre-
ated a fundamental dualism between the secular and the sacred in which the
secular was in a hierarchical position to the sacred. In terms of spirituality, buen
vivir disrupts this dualism. What Wilson stated in her reconceptualization of the
definition of religion is relevant here. She argued that the dualisms that put reli-
gion and spirituality in a box can be overcome by means of relational dialogism
or relational thought that “proposes a ‘both/and’ approach, assisting transcen-
dence of barriers established across existing dualisms” (2010: 744). This is equally
 Spirituality and global capitalism 227

true of indigenous spirituality and buen vivir, whereby spirituality and the sacred
are not seen as distinct from the public, the political, and the economic but, in
fact, are engaged with each. In particular, humans are not seen as separated from
Nature and creation but, in fact, are a part of Nature.
Buen vivir, in sum, offers an alternative way of looking at the world that is
critical of modernity and the world-system. However, I argue that this worldview
cannot be reduced to an ideology as defined by, for example, Soborski, in an
earlier chapter in this book. Ideologies, I argue, are products of modernity – in
particular, the Enlightenment. Buen vivir and the concepts associated with it
transcend ideology and dominant ways of viewing the world and how it can be
and should be changed. Buen vivir, living well, is about an ethos, a way of life,
how people live in the here and now, how they relate to one another, the land,
Nature and Mother Earth serving as the basis of an alternative project identity. It
is not prescriptive in the way that an ideology can be in terms of offering a way
forward. Here, the statement of Sub-commandante Marcos, “one no, many
yeses,” in another context may serve as an illustration.9 That is, there can be one
“no” to economic growth which is threatening Mother Earth, but many “yeses”
in terms of the alternative paths chosen to go forward. This, to Wolfson and
Funke (this volume) is a limitation, a weakness of leftist social movements, but
this chapter has argued that buen vivir is offering a means for the coalescence of
social movements particularly in terms of climate change.
That is, buen vivir serves to strengthen and offer unity to movement building
whether these be environmental, indigenous, feminist, anti-poverty, or religious
movements who commonly recognize the growing threat to Mother Earth.10
Indigenous spirituality serves as a means of inspiring left movements to look at the
world through a different lens. Its rejection of growth, for example, brings into
question the focus on conspicuous consumption that is desecrating the Earth and
hence, it questions capitalism itself. In rejecting capitalism it does not propose
socialism as an alternative, since socialism also is a proponent of growth.
In addition to rejecting growth, buen vivir, as noted previously, rejects anthro-
pocentrism in favor of a biocentric view of the world whereby humans are not
separate from Nature and Creation but are, in fact, a part of it. Nature is not to
be treated as a source of exploitation and profit but as a living entity that deserves
our care and respect. It is little wonder then that indigenous spirituality and buen
vivir are becoming attractive to left social movements in a time of planetary and
ecological crisis. Buen vivir in a sense holds a mirror up to modernity, its contribution
(e.g., through capitalism) to the crisis, its inherent limitations, and its inability to
provide coherent and effective responses. Just as neoliberalism cannot provide an
effective answer to the economic crisis brought about by neoliberalism, it is reason-
able to ask whether or not modernity can provide effective answers to the problems
associated with modernity. For those who seek to view the world anew and
create their own alternative project identities, it may be time to turn in a respectful
way to those which modernity and colonialism thought it had left behind.
228 The politics of making life possible: towards buen vivir?

Notes
1 The author would like to thank Dr. Erica Neeganagwedgin for her insights and con-
structive suggestions.
2 The silence of mainstream scholarship and reality are two different things. Religion
and spirituality have played an important role in the lives of African Americans since
the time of slavery up to the present (Taylor and Chatters 2010).
3 See in this volume Figueroa-Helland and Raghu, Cormie, and Conway, as well as
Smith et al. (2014).
4 Markoff here is specifically referring to the women’s suffrage movement, from the
American Revolution to the Abolitionists.
5 Spirituality, it must said, is not necessarily mutually exclusive of religion. The two can
be intertwined, even partners as Kourie (2006) argues. Both terms are social constructs
and their relationship(s) socially defined and in flux.
6 In Pentecostalism religion is not separate from spirituality. Pentecostalism asserts that
God is the divine source of limitless abundance and that it is one’s spiritual obligation
to become as abundant as possible. God desires that we have physical, material, and
spiritual prosperity.
7 Implicitly buen vivir poses a challenge to social movement theory as discussed by
Conway (this volume), which is premised on Eurocentric notions of modernity.
Figueroa-Helland and Raghu (this volume) address this challenge directly.
8 For a broader discussion of the campaign see P. J. Smith, “Alberta and Canada’s Petro-
Politics: A New Spatiality of Political Contestation?” in Meenal Shrivastava and Lorna
Stefanick (eds) Beyond the Rhetoric: Democracy and Governance in a Global North Oil
Economy, Edmonton, Canada: Athabasca University Press, 2015.
9 It is curious that Wolfson and Funke did not examine in their reference to Marcos and
this statement the Indigenous cosmologies upon which the Zapatista movement is
built. This is a critical omission.
10 For example, Pope Francis’s encyclical “Our Common Home” was influenced by Latin
American Indigenous cosmologies, as Naomi Klein (2015) has presciently pointed
out, including its rejection of conspicuous consumption and the growth model all in
defense of Creation. Similarly, the World Council of Churches, active in the World Social
Forum, takes a similar perspective in one of its key documents, “AGAPE” (2006).

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