Book Review: Theresa A. Yugar, Sarah E. Robinson, Lilian Dube and Teresia Mbari Hinga (eds), Valuing Lives, Healing Earth: Religion, Gender, and Life on Earth

Abstract

This is a thought-provoking book featuring a compilation of essays that reflect on the current environmental crisis affecting women and our world in the twenty-first century. Throughout the book, the authors examine environmental injustices affecting various regions, including North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. They highlight how environmental harm from climate change disproportionately affects individuals from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, including Blacks, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), especially women from those groups. The book is of interdisciplinary interest as it draws from politics, religion, economics, ecology, history, and health concepts. The book incorporates various perspectives; the essays are well-organized, engaging, and easy to follow. Each paper is strong on its own and offers more profound insight into the global effects of climate change when aligned with the others included in this book. Each chapter shares overlapping themes of environmental injustice caused by exploitation and its impact on human lives and the Earth. The essays are categorized into four sections: Knowledge, Ritual, Activism, and Food. Within each chapter, contributors provide insight into how minorities practice environmental activism through their sharing of wisdom, traditions, social justice, and food production. Indigenous knowledge is shared to acknowledge ancestral teachings about ecological consciousness and preservation taught by the Native Peoples. Some Indigenous folks mentioned are Marlene Castellano (Mohawk), Maggie Kovach (Cree), Elder Tom McCallum (Cree), Shane Wilson (Opaskwayak), Judy Iseke (Métis), and Gregory Cajete (Tewa) sharing the importance of Indigenous storytelling (p. 71), the Indigenous women of the Gond Peoples from India protecting sacred lands (p. 141), and the Nahua Peoples of Tenochtitlán practicing eco-technologies (pp. 226–230), to name a few. In addition, many women-led movements such as Teresa Felipe Costa of the National Collectors Movement in Brazil (p. 15), the Salim movement in Korea during the crisis involving the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (p. 52), Manos Anacshinas and Compacto Human in Pamplona Alta women colectivos who are addressing 1163308 FTH0010.1177/09667350231163308Feminist TheologyBook Review book-review2023