Mina Boyd

COLT 360

Professor Lejeune 

June 7, 2022

Close Reading

“Homeless in the ‘Global Village’” by Vandana Shiva

For this close reading I will be looking at an excerpt from Vandana Shiva’s chapter “Homeless in the ‘Global Village’” in her book “Ecofeminism”. This chapter of her book distinguishes between two classes of homelessness that are emerging in the ‘global village’, which are people she refers to as ‘transnational corporate executives’, who travel so frequently that they do not have a specific place to call home, and individuals who are uprooted from their homeland. With regards to the latter example of homelessness she focuses primarily on communities in India who are being displaced from their homelands by new infrastructures used for production, which benefits wealthy countries such as the United States rather than India. She also adds that by removing people from their homeland, they are also being removed from their cultural heritage because many groups have strong religious and cultural connections to the land. The specific passage of this chapter that I will be looking at starts on page 104 at “for those who hold the soil sacred” and ends on page 105 at “only in terms of territory to be conquered and owned”. This specific passage consists mostly of a quote from an elderly member of the Krenak tribe at the World Commission of Environmental Development, who is speaking on the displacement of the tribe. 

In his speech, the elderly man (who remains unnamed) states that the only place they could live is somewhere where they could “speak to [their] gods, to speak to [their] nature.” The idea that in the place that they live they are able to speak to their gods highlights not only how important that space is to them, but also signifies that a deeper connection exists given that people who believe in gods cannot normally communicate with them. Additionally, being able to speak to nature shows that they have a connection to it, which comes with a mutual understanding and respect. They are also not speaking of nature as a whole, but rather he frames it as ‘their’ nature, which implies that that specific area is where they can make that connection rather than anywhere else. He uses these statements to emphasize his point that their homeland is the only place that they will be able to live and thrive because they will not be able to establish the same connection to their gods and to nature in any other space, regardless of how nice the space is. With this he adds that “the Krenak people, we continue dying and we die insisting that there is only one place for us to live” which asserts that this connection with the land is intergenerational, and it is so important to them that even with death they continue to insist that there is not other place for them. 

His quote ends by saying that “we can no longer see the planet that we live upon as if it were a chess board where people just move things around”. His choice of comparing the movement of people to chess is important because chess relies on the use of strategy, and each character in the game has a specific role. With this he may be touching on how strategic the movement of people in India is (and other parts of the world), with the end goal being to satisfy the rich, developed countries while the residents are pushed around. With regard to the characters in the game, he may feel that they are being treated like pawns since the government and outside officials are attempting to move them around, and they are relatively powerless in these situations. He also adds that “we cannot consider the planet as something isolated from the cosmic,” which suggests that the connection that they have to the land is part of something larger. He may be referring to this relationship in terms of their belief in gods, or implying that there are greater systems that impact the earth and their connection to it. This could also be seen as a call for scientists to look at nature and the planet in terms of the larger system that it is a part of, as a way to make sense of the changes happening in our world. 

The last part included in this passage says that “this approach to nature… sees the soil as the mother and people as her offspring, not her master” which relates to the image of earth as mother earth. This is important because a mother, symbolically, is someone who creates and nurtures life. Even though this group believes in gods, they still view earth as a source of nurture. This mindset seems necessary to having respect for nature and understanding its ways. Seeing nature as something that a person can master does the opposite, which leads to a lack of respect for nature. This mindset is what has put us in the position where climate change is occurring very rapidly, and not enough is being done to counter it. It is not fair that the people who do care for their environment are the ones who are being displaced from it. Lastly, it is pointed out that in the place of viewing the earth as a mother, “the culture of the white man” has been introduced. This specifically points out the fact that the culture that white people have enforced all over the world is what has altered people’s views on nature from being a motherly figure to being something that can be mastered. 

In conclusion, this passage is important to the overall message of the chapter because within it exists a deeper message about what it means to be connected to a certain piece of land, and how Euro-centric culture has washed away the appreciation for the land that many people still hold. It also brings up how people in power attempt to move others around without regard to this connection, strictly for their own benefit, which leads many people to feel a sense of homelessness.